Dandelions
by AbominableDante
Summary: The third part of the Farfarello arc I've been doing. Sequel to 'Agoraphobia'.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes:** While this is not the final chapter (not by a long shot), this is the last installment of the Recent Farfarello arc that I've been working on. The warnings and disclaimers are exactly the same as in the former two fictions, but let me remind you kind readers yet again that I am a poor college student and could little afford a cup of bloody overprices chain-coffee (coughstarbuckscough), much less an anime, any of it's characters, whatever other references I might make, the island of Guam or the fluorescent light tubes in any nearby library. For warnings, as before, there is fruit, but not the kind you flavor pork chops with.

If you were too young (or naive) to know what that means, get out of here and go read your piddle books with happy endings…

The rest of you, enjoy, because if you don't, I would like very much to send Farfarello after you. As of this moment, though, he's…well…occupied…

* * *

**Dandelions**

* * *

**1

* * *

**"When I was a little boy, I wanted to become the President of the United States," I said with a smile over my open bottle of beer. Schuldig glanced as me as he drank from his own bottle, blue eyes quizzical. 

"You're not even a citizen, Far, you can't be President," he replied, matter-of-factly. My smile went sour and I finished my drink so I could slam it down on the coffee table as I left. I figured it would make a good scene if I left like that, some real drama.

"Yeah, because every ten-year-old knows that," I growled, slammed my empty bottle down and got up to leave, stumbling stupidly out of the room. Yeah, real dramatic.

* * *

I was in a hospital when I woke up. Even before I opened my eyes, I know. It was the smell; something I'd grown up with, something I believed I carried with me, in my hair, no matter how many times I tried to wash it out. That was the bleach and I knew the whole time I'd been doing it to myself. Either way, the smell was inescapable.

I wondered if I had ever really left, if Swartz and Tennyson and Esset and Schuldig's blue eyes were merely a dream. I wondered if it was all formulated by the sick side of my brain, like all my other hallucinations.

A nurse came in while I lay there wondering, I couldn't tell how long exactly since I woke up. I watched her move about the room, her scrubs decked out in pale blue splashes of lilac-shaped flora, her face ruddy, round and flat under her unkempt bangs. Against the hotel-white of the walls, she looked really rather pretty, but then I'm sure I might've been high on something.

"How old am I?" I croaked. My throat burned rough, like I had swallowed sand and it was still grinding its way to my stomach. It occurred to me that the word 'hurt' was inaccurate, but there was no other way to label my discomfort. I wanted a glass of water, but I shivered at the very thought.

The idea of water terrified me and I remembered something…

Falling, down, down, into the dark and raging depths…

The shatter of glass like the wind chimes kept in Japanese houses for good luck…

Someone calling for Farfarello…

The nurse turned to me and smiled, clapped her hands together in delight like a toddler. I briefly wondered if she was some kind of retarded case who'd wandered in unintentionally.

"Oh! You're awake!"

Way to state the obvious, now answer my question, I thought back at her. I was of the idea that most everyone in hospitals were idiots. Their doctorates degrees meant they only knew the mechanical parts of people, but that meant nothing of their actual social intelligence. So far, I hadn't been proven wrong.

"Let me call the doctor."

"How old am I?" I asked again, if not a bit desperately. For all I knew, I could still have been twelve. I couldn't get to a mirror, I didn't think I could walk to find one, but I had to know.

She paused, looked confused.

"Do you speak Japanese?" she asked, her joy rapidly disappearing in to something I recognized as worry, fear.

I speak any number of languages, I thought, but I didn't know how I knew this. Maybe this was another trick of the mind. Maybe all I was spouting at this very moment was gibberish. Maybe I had really lost it, totally, completely.

I groped for any words I could, strung them together in what I hoped to be a coherent sentence and flung it at her through my abused mouth.

"How old am I?" She smiled again.

"Oh, good, you do." I could smell her relief. "We don't know. You came in, no name, no ID. Someone found you on the beach near Takatori Towers used to be. Do you know Takatori Towers?"

Beach…the tower? Had I washed ashore? It wasn't a dream, it was a real-life nightmare. I gaped at her, nodding stupidly as I collected my thoughts.

A flash of orange, the glitter of lights on glasses…

"Others…" I began, but I couldn't speak anymore. My throat ignored my mind.

"Let me go get the doctor." She turned to leave, but in a moment of inspired strength, I snagged her arm and half-way sat up, my eye pleading.

"Schuldig!" I demanded, jerking her back to me, "Where's Schuldig?" She looked terrified.

"Please relax, Sir. I'll be back with the doctor."

"Were there others? Crawford, Schuldig, Nagi?" I gasped. I might've been crying. I wanted Schuldig to come and shush me, tell me to shut the fuck up…I needed him to shut off the visions in my head…

Nagi's pale face, huge eyes open as the sea pulled him down…

Crawford diving after our boy, his shoes gone, his suit wet and torn, his glasses missing.

Crawford swimming deeper into the dark…

Schuldig dragging me up, my head above the water, forcing me to swim toward shore…

Schuldig screaming at Crawford when he went down, begging him to save Nagi. I know I had never seen Schuldig cry like that before, the retching sobs while he dragged me toward shore…

"Please, sir, just let me get the doctor…"

* * *

I was kept in the hospital for at least a month, hallucinations and nightmares raging between the sessions of questions and tests. Every doctor was different, new, and all of them wanted to know who I was and what had happened to me.

The doctor would sit in the visitor's chair, it's only occupant, his blue pens in the pocket of his white lab coat, his teal scrubs below the coat. This one had calloused, rough hands and ugly fingernails. The last one had balding brown hair on his sunburned head. The one before him had long, slender legs, like a woman's, a dark voice, and glasses.

"What is your name?"

"Jei."

"Jeffery?"

"Geoffrey, G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y. It's English. Like the writer."

"Are you English?"

"No, Irish."

"Why are you in Japan?"

"I don't know."

I never even paused. The doctor just looked at me, marked something down on his clipboard and moved on.

"How long have you lived in Japan?"

"Couple of years."

"Do you have any family we can contact?"

"No."

"Friends?"

"No."

"Coworkers?"

"I think they're dead, I don't know where they are."

Another pause, another look, another mark on his clipboard. I played with the IV tube in my hand.

"Where in Japan were you living before?"

"Tokyo."

"Where?"

"I don't know the number; the writing here all looks the same to me."

"You speak Japanese very well."

"Thank you."

"Do you speak other languages?"

"English, French, Latin, Gaelic, German, a little Italian."

He smiles at me.

Once, after the MRI, the doctor asked me:

"Do you have any addictions?"

"Coffee, tea, chocolate, television."

"Allergies?"

"Penicillin, mold, bee stings."

"Psychological disorders?"

"Advanced Auditory Schizophrenia, Paranoia and I'm Catholic."

That got him to pause, got me strange looks from the nurses and later on it got me a straight jacket and a lot of pills.

I wanted a morphine drip and all the time in the world to sleep my misery away.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 1_

_Please Review_


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Notes: **I have indeed been writing. I have also been managing midterms, family visits, friends home from college, and the onset of cold-induced depression.

This is going to be one interesting winter…

* * *

**2**

* * *

The Ward was like a white-plastered version of Hell and all of Satan's minions wore scrubs of various patters and colors. Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry, Pink Checkerboards, and more Disney characters were common. I had forgotten what normal clothes looked like. All the patients were made to wear pale blue scrubs or straight jackets; white robes and slippers and stocking caps, like in a spa.

I hadn't had an episode in weeks, only a couple of nightmares and I hadn't attacked anyone. As a reward, the nurses let me out of the straight jacket so I could roam about the recreational area on my own. It was filled with silent Japanese people, suffering from their own quiet tics. No one noticed me as I sat down in front of the television with some others. The sofa wasn't green leather.

I missed that goddamn sofa.

The drugs I had taken after breakfast were slowing the world down, morphing the faces on the screen; my limbs were like melted rubber. I think I fell asleep.

* * *

I was picking the Formica off the table, my head lowered to its surface to watch my gnawed fingernails uselessly pry bits and pieces of tabletop away. My cheek was in a pool of drool. I didn't care.

I was almost positive that Swartz was dead. No one had come to claim me, not even when I classed for them in my dreams. The link to Schuldig's head was gone. Not dead, just not there. Poof, evaporated, nothing left but the bare wisp of memory.

The bleached part of my hair had grown out and been cut off. I realized my hair was darker than when I was a boy. At eleven, it really had been white, Nordic, Saxon flaxen. At twelve, it was slightly darker, but still very pale. At fourteen, I started bleaching it.

Not it was almost gold, still a shade whiter, but very yellow all the same. It almost matched the color of my eye, just above my jutting cheekbones, not high, jaundiced.

They didn't let me wear an eye patch, so I was left with the ugly, sunken scar of my empty socket. It didn't matter, though, the drugs kept me quiet. I was no trouble at all.

Every time I looked in a mirror, I wanted to cry. I developed a fear of needles, the color white, the little blue sleeping pills, water. I couldn't take a bath I was so scared of drowning. Orderlies had to force me in every time, and then lock me in the tub for an hour so I wouldn't stink anymore. I had a destructive habit of picking at anything within reach, my clothes, parts of the sofa, my bedclothes, my lips, the scabs up my arms, the table…

I missed the team, convinced now that they were dead. I even went so far as to try hanging myself in the bathroom, to break my neck falling off my bed, store up my sleeping pills so I could OD. I never worked, and now I was always watched. I never talked, though, except to Tink. She was my best friend now. She understood everything.

* * *

Esset was dead too, had to be, or they didn't believe I was any kind of threat to whatever leftovers of their empire existed. It was just as well, I hoped they were dead. They were evil, true evil.

It was midwinter and the snow lay thick on the grounds I had never visited outside the hospital walls. In fact, I hadn't been outside in nearly six months. I didn't miss it. It was bath time and the orderlies were in my doorway, trying to coax me out form under the bed and out the door. One of them grabbed for my ankle, but I kicked him in the face, heard the snap of a broken nose and him cursing. I curled a little further under the bed while the other two grabbed hold of me and started pulling me out.

I screamed; I knew what was coming. A whole hour of battling off memories, of pure unalterated terror, and I wanted none of it. They stood me up and started walking me out into the hallway when I slammed my elbow into the second one's side, crushed his foot under my bare heel, threw him over my shoulder onto the linoleum so hard the air whooshed out of him and he lay gasping at my feet. Number three tried to grab for me, but I ducked and slammed my fist into his neck, bent over to knee him in the kidney and push him to his knees. I grabbed a handful of his black hair, pulled his head back, clamped my teeth over his ear and ripped it off as he screamed.

I spat the ear on the floor and left him there while I turned to Orderly number one with the broken nose, his blood gushing onto the floor as he tried to cup it with his fingers. He looked at me with terror and I wiped the blood off my mouth with my scabbed wrist.

"I. Am. Not. Taking. A. Bath." I snarled and brought my knee into his groin. He sank to the floor with cry and I stepped over him. I was ready to leave. I had to make sure Esset was really dead; I had to finish what Crawford started.

That was when he turned the corner, beautiful red hair cut short, blue eyes smiling in amusement. He was wearing a lab coat and teal scrubs, like the others, carried a clipboard and pens in his left pocket. He wore sneakers and glasses, but the smile was the same, smug and brief. My heart thrilled.

"I'm afraid after that little scene, you'll have to get yourself cleaned up anyway, Geoffrey," he said, his voice not high, but still nasal. I just stood there in my bare feet and bloodied clothes and scabbed arms, gaping. I might have been crying.

"Will you do that for me? Will you go clean up? It'll be quick, I promise, and no one will lock you in. I'll make sure no one locks you in."

I closed my mouth and nodded slowly, not taking my eye off him. He nodding back and stepped forward cautiously, his sneakers squeaking softly as he took my arm and led me in the opposite direction, toward the bathrooms. He stopped a nurse on the way, told her to go help the orderlies, then led me off again. He shut the door and locked it behind him before turning to me. I wanted to hug him, to kiss him, but I was still covered in drying blood and I didn't want to ruin his clothes, his perfect white lab coat.

He ran the water in the bathtub for me and we watched the insides turn green with the chlorine. It was full and he turned the tap off and waited for me. I stepped away, afraid.

"I'll drown. I can't swim. Not well." I said softly, taking another step away. He didn't move toward me, just stood by the tub and waited.

"I'll keep your head above the water," he offered, but I shook my head.

"I see them dying, Nagi…dying…drowning…He'll drown, our boy…"

"Nagi's fine. Come here."

I shook my head again, but he still didn't come and get me. The steam of the room was making his hair curl and frizz. He didn't notice. He got a chair and sat down by the tub to wait for me. He didn't beckon to me anymore. He knew I would come.

I moved toward him and crouched at his feet and he let me put my head on his knee, let me wrap my arms around his leg and hold it as I shuttered. He carded his fingers through my hair, whispered something German.

"Get in the water, Jei," he ordered softly.

I sighed and got up, slowly undressed and looked tentatively into the bathtub. I could see a raging ocean in that tub, just waiting to swallow me up, but his hand was on my shoulder, he was guiding me in before I even realized it. My feet first, up to my knees, then I sat down and the water came up to my chest, my shoulders. I sat back against the side and it was at my neck. I panicked, tried to flail about, but he told me to calm down, relax, everything was fine. I was fine. My knees poked out of the water, white skin and blonde hair. He took off his lab coat, rolled his short sleeves over his shoulders and wetted my hair, scrubbed it clean with the horrible shampoo. The water turned pink with the blood and he had me move to a different tub to rinse off.

My hair was long now, I'd let it grow long enough to fall into my eye. A month more and it might just hide my missing eye. I raked the hair out of my face with my hand, while the other I kept clenched on the side of the tub. I was still shaking, still terrified, still sure any second now I would be sucked under.

And then it was over. He guided me out, helped me dry off, found me clean clothes. I got dressed while he unlocked the door. He put his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

"I'll get you out of here, just be patient."

"As if I hadn't already waited six months," I snapped back, viciously hating him for a moment.

He smiled apologetically.

"Crawford's kept me busy. He said you'd be safe here until now. I'm to get you out in a couple of days, don't worry. Just, please, behave."

I opened my mouth to argue, then thought better and shut it. Crawford…Crawford was alive and giving orders. Swartz was still alive.

"Why did you leave me here?" I asked, gripping his hand in mine. I searched his face, but couldn't read it.

"It was for the best. You're safe here…"

I pulled him to me and held him tight, dropped my face into his hair, his short, frizzing hair and breathed deep. My mind couldn't tell me that this was all imagined. I knew that smell so well. His cigarettes, his shampoo, his skin…

"It's okay, Farfarello," he whispered.

"Not yet," I breathed back, "Not yet."

* * *

_Fin Chapter 2_

_Please Review_

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton: **Ohmigod, I'm so happy you're back! Squees, grabs and hugs Wanna cookie?


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **I've taken to bringing my laptop to school with me, and it gives me a chance to write in between classes. Sure, I don't get to read quite so often, but in consolation, I better my chances to lovely reviews (Blatant hint intentional). As a matter of fact, I'm in English class, right now, laughing my head off because someone misspelled the word 'analyze' as 'analization'. My classmate just told me my face turned all red from laughing.

My hair is no longer orange! It's black! (slathers on goth makeup) Yes, I'm still in college, and midterms are driving me crazy. AGH! MIDTERMS! Must avoid….must avoid…(writes).

In other news, seems to hate this chapter for unknown reasonsl. Maybe it's because it's so long? Either way, I have the delete the whole story and resubmit it just to wake it up. I hope to God this works.

* * *

**3**

* * *

He was sitting down in the same teal scrubs and white lab coat with blue pens in the pocket. His hair was still short, for him. The heavy locks of red were gone, and the tendrils left over barely covered his eyes, his ears, the nape of his neck. There was no bandana, no sunglasses, just a lot of gel. He looked tired, though, his eyes smudged almost black. It made him look gothic, or like a raver. It made me think of what I used to believe was the Devil's music, pounding out of clubs with the same beat as sex, the same thud of an excited heart when in the act of murder, arson, kidnapping, torture, or beating off in a public place.

It made me smile, somehow, even as I picked at the hem of my shirt.

Schuldig was wearing glasses today, and a nametag that claimed his name was Dr. Wilder. It occurred to me that it might be his real name, but I didn't ask. To me, he was Schuldig and that supposed real name was some kind of fake. Schuldig was the name of a condemned man, someone who was already separated from reality and therefore safe from it. If one could cling to that man, that dead man, perhaps one too could also be safe. I had always thought this way.

"What are you thinking?" he asked me, looking at me over the edge of his glasses, holding the tip of his pen to a clipboard. He was so serious and the look he gave me scared me. I stopped smiling and shrank back into my chair.

"Eiffle 65," I replied honestly.

"The band?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Should I not be?" I countered, annoyed at his unaffected mask. I knew this was supposed to be a game, a façade we had to put up to disassociate Dr. Wilder's presence with my eventual escape. I could feel Schuldig's mind press toward mine, a kind of shifting in the air, felt with the mind and not the skin. I was wary, but he frowned at me again and spoke again.

"What reminded you of Eiffle 65?"

His mind pressed in and then deep into my mind. I could feel it probe for the broken link and I knew he wouldn't find it. There was nothing there, not even fragments.

"You look a little sleepless. Ravers look like that. Ravers dance to techno. Eiffle 65 is techno, sort of."

"Loose association," Schuldig identified, "Is there anything else it reminds you of?"

"The band? Or sleeplessness?"

"Either."

"Sin, sex, satan…a heartbeat…"

"I've read in your files that you have manifestations of a…farie?"

"Her name is Tinker Bell, like from the book, Peter Pan," I affirmed, "Why?"

"Just curious. Have you seen her recently?"

"No."

His mind started building a new link, mental fingers swift, if not swifter than before. Had he been practicing, or have he gotten better by some other means?

"They keep me pretty drugged," I finished. He nodded and pushed up his glasses, waiting for me to continue.

"I remember reading a book once, 'Fight Club'…They mentioned God. I wasn't supposed to read it because, well…God and I aren't on good terms and my boss thought I'd throw some kind of fit, but it made sense to me. I don't know if I ever told you this or if you just knew, but it said that 'If you're male and you're Christian and living in America, your father is your model for God. And if you never know your father, if your father bails out or dies or is never home, what do you believe about God?'

"In that sense, it reminded me of my father. I never knew him, either of them. My biological father, as far as I know, was my mother's brother, but I don't know what happened to him. My adoptive father was always distant, as if he knew something was wrong about me, before everyone else. It made me wonder if God was some kind of incestuous schizophrenic and I'd been worshipping myself the whole time…But I'd never dare have sex with Valerie. She was…my sister, and I couldn't imagine doing something so awful to her.

"It was about then I got the grand idea to destroy myself, but it didn't work. I didn't feel anything. It was totally pointless…And this isn't making one lick of sense to you is it?"

"Since you're speaking in Gaelic, not really," Schuldig said with a half-amused, half-disgusted look. I frowned at him because I knew he could read the language off my mind if he'd wanted to.

"But you get the idea?" I pressed.

"I see a few holes, but you wouldn't like it if I pointed them out, would you?"

I frowned deeper and shoved him out of my mind. I knew he was finished now. He had no need to remain and sense all my recent past. I didn't want him to know what I'd gone through, but I wanted him to know I resented be left alone here for six months without a single word to know that Swartz was, indeed, still alive.

"Can I go now? I have to take my meds or they'll put me back in a jacket."

Schuldig sighed and nodded.

"If you want. I'll see you tomorrow."

I glared at him.

"Promise?"

* * *

At eleven in the evening, I woke up shaking. I couldn't move to stop myself, and the knowledge that my body was rejecting all my commands frightened me. I was used to total control, the ability to ignore basic needs like eating, moving, or breathing for longer than anyone I knew. Now that my body was throwing itself off the bed and to the floor without my permission, my mind raced in horror.

This had happened never happened before. I wasn't an epileptic, and there was no reason for me to turn into one now. I felt my heart stutter and stop, stutter again and pause. I gasped for air, my crooked fingers reaching into the air as if I could grab it and shove it into my mouth.

Everything went black a moment later. I floated down into the darkness, calm, knowing…

It was like drowning. I was calm, but I was still terrified. I couldn't find the surface.

* * *

Something grabbed me from the darkness, a strong arm pulling my head above water. There was no storm, no raging sea, just the inside of a van and the hum of an engine. Schuldig's face swam on the side of my vision and Nagi's face opposite it, flashing a light in my eye, and away. In, away, in, away.

"Farfarello?" Nagi's voice was deeper; his accent round around the vowels…Had his hands always been so gentle on my face?

I squeezed my hands and could feel someone's thin and bony fingers in my tingling grip.

"He heard you," Schuldig said quietly. Nagi stopped flashing the light in my eye and leaned over to look at me. Six months had been kind to him. His face had lost some of it' softness and his cheekbones were starting to stand out on his face. What I could see of his shoulders was still narrow, but in a less boyish way.

/What the hell happened?/ I thought through the new team link. Nagi must've heard me, because he glanced over at Schuldig, who just nodded back. I could feel Crawford's mind listening in, quiet and cunning, even in silence, even when driving.

"I slipped you a drug that would briefly stop your heart so I could get you out of there and erase your records at the same time. Congratulations, you don't exist…again," Schuldig replied smugly, back to his normal self.

It was Nagi's turn to speak, "Crawford and I got you out of the morgue before they could conduct and autopsy while Schuldig deleted your files and erased all memories of you. We revived you just now. Are you in any pain or discomfort?"

/I don't know. I just got killed and electrocuted without anyone asking for my permission. How do you think I feel? Where have you been for the past six months?!/

"Don't yell, Farfarello, we can hear you," Crawford's voice snapped from the front of the van.

Nagi ducked his chin a little and wouldn't look at me and Schuldig was still somewhere out of view.

"We had to finish what we started with Esset. After the tower, we couldn't be sure how stable you were, but we knew you'd be safe in the hospital. We've barely begun tearing the corporation entirely apart, but we've got a solid wedge in their operations. We needed a full team, though, to finish all this, so we tracked you down and got you out. Be happy we did at all, since I hear your hallucinations have worsened," Crawford explained flatly, in exactly the tone that made me wish I had the strength to get up and throttle him.

"I feel like such a commodity," I growled.

"You're more a hindrance than help, because we don't have any anti-psychotics at the moment. You're going to have to deal with those hallucinations yourself for the time being," Crawford countered viciously.

I choked and struggled to sit up. Nagi unwillingly helped me and Schuldig let me lean against him, but I only wanted to glare at Crawford. I was beginning to think I was better off in the hospital.

"You were. We should've left you there, but Schuldig insisted you'd be helpful and he's one annoying son of a bitch when he wants something. In the mean time, get some sleep; it's going to be a long drive."

"Where are we going, Crawford?" Nagi asked as he crawled out of the back of the van and took shotgun. His legs and arms were longer and if it was possible, I think he might've gotten thinner…He was only sixteen and he was already turning into a handsome young man. I felt a little like a father watching his boy grow up, but the moment passed into the more familiar brotherly territory. I couldn't possibly imagine myself as Nagi's father; that was Crawford's spot to fill.

"We have a safe house waiting for us outside of the city," Crawford replied, his silhouette peering out the windshield.

"Yakuza?" Nagi suggested and Crawford nodded.

"Get some sleep. We'll switch off in a couple of hours."

* * *

Schuldig and I were bedded down in the back of the van, the two of us curled in a mass of blankets and what seemed to be several old futons. It was the first time we'd been so close in months and I realized how very much I had missed him. We couldn't stop reaching out to one another, as if one of us might disappear like a dream. What a terrible dream…I curled closer to Schuldig and pressed my nose against his neck, against the short hairs at the base of his scalp.

"You cut your hair," I whispered against his skin, more question than statement. I could feel him nod. I could smell his scent in his hair, of salty sweat from the enclosed space and the heat from under the blanket we're wrapped in. I pressed my lips to his skin, pulled away and licked the flavor off. It was human, real, dirty…something I hadn't felt since before the hospital. Everything there, with Schuldig, in the back of that van was real, colorful life.

"Necessity. It was in the way and they were looking for long-haired gaijins like me. I even dyed it black to blend in, can you believe it?"

I couldn't. Nor could I ever imagine Schuldig with black hair. Well, I could, but the effect was harsh and nearly unbearable to look at. I could imagine he hated it. I could feel how damaged his hair was now, its sick deadness like silicon strands under my fingertips. He'd bleached and dyed it red again, I knew, but it wasn't the same.

"Wouldn't even let me have some goddamn conditioner," Schuldig muttered and I couldn't help a quiet laugh.

"If it's any consolation, we didn't have real shampoo at the hospital," I said.

"Considering they could get you in the water," he said through a smirk.

"True."

He pressed his fingers into my scalp and his face into my hair and breathed deeply, then sighed. He was relaxed, calm in my grip, like a sated cat in mid-sunbath, which in turn was calming.

"I like your hair like this. I didn't know it was blonde," Schuldig breathed against my ear, massaging my scalp and down to my neck. I could feel my shoulders relax entirely of their own accord for the first time in months. It felt amazingly good and I nearly dropped off to sleep right there. I might've, had Crawford not called for Schuldig to switch with him so he and Nagi could get some sleep.

My head shot up and I was struggling to my knees before I even remembered where I was and the van lurched to the side as Crawford pulled over. I was dropped back onto the nest of blankets by the force and Schuldig cursed when I crushed his leg to break my fall.

"Thank you SO much! We really needed that," Schuldig growled at Crawford. Our leader didn't even notice, used to Schuldig's outbursts, and unbuckled his seatbelt so he could crawl into the back. Schuldig was still muttering nastily as he pulled on his shoes and Crawford told me to go switch places with Nagi.

I almost didn't move when I glanced over at Crawford. He looked so much older, a man just at the moment after his prime, even though I somehow knew that this was all a farce. Indeed, he looked worn, tired, a little rumpled, but through that and the gray hairs that were starting on his temples, there was still immeasurable strength behind his eyes. He frowned at me and pointed to the front of the van.

"Now, Farfarello."

I nodded and obeyed, letting Nagi pat me on the shoulder and ask if I was all right in passing before strapping myself in. I was not partial to the idea of flying about the van again. If it were up to me, I'd rather have walked.

"Don't be stupid, Far," Schuldig said viciously as he slipped into the driver's seat and started the car, "You'd never make it by tonight if you walked."

"Don't take your bad mood out on me, Schuldig," I snapped back.

"I wouldn't have bad mood if Brad-fucking-Crawford hadn't ruined a perfectly nice moment…goddamn asshole."

It made me feel as if we were a married couple, bickering over something as petty as a lost moment. But then, to people in our line of work, a moment might've been all we had and to steal it from another was a crime. I felt I shared some of Schuldig's annoyance, but I still wouldn't justify it. We'd have plenty of time when we got to the safe house.

I turned away and stared out the window, but there wasn't much to see. It was too dark outside, so I settled for staring at my reflection and the lights inside the van as other vehicles passed by. For a brief, shining moment, Schuldig's hair would blaze like fire, and then just as suddenly go out. It was interesting to watch.

An hour later, after the traffic had thinned out with the night, Schuldig finally spoke.

"You look like an Ayran. Freaks me out…like the Nazi poster boy."

To be honest, it wasn't exactly the ideal statement for the moment. I wanted to bite him for daring. He picked up on that thought and pulled his arm away from me.

"It's the Swedish," I corrected, seething, "Not a drop of German to do with it."

"Swedish?"

"Vikings. They raided Britannia for a lot of the early Middle Ages. Didn't they teach you this in school."

Schuldig shrugged. "Never went, it was boring. And no, I never read those books you gave me. Reading gives me hives."

"Oh, and the newspaper doesn't?"

"Not at all. The newspaper is merely a televised reporter in print."

I paused.

"You make about as little sense as teaching a cat to piss in a toilet."

Schuldig laughed.

It was a laugh I hadn't heard in a long time; soft, real, and not at all forced. As much mockery as Schuldig portrayed, with his sneer and his cackles, he didn't really laugh. When he did, it was always something I cherished. He eventually thought of me as a sentimental idiot for it, but I was too used to his barbs to notice.

"How much longer until we get there?" I asked, restless. Three hours in the car and I was feeling claustrophobic. Whenever I closed my eyes and drifted sleepily, I half expected the inside walls of the van to be padded when I woke again.

"It should be close by, actually. We're in the right neighborhood…Go wake Crawford, he knows where to go."

I nodded and crawled into the back. Crawford was lounging in the loveseat-sized chair squished between the front and back seats of the van, a wool blanket over his lap and his head thrown back over the top edge. His glasses were off, tucked into his shirt pocket and his mouth was open, but he wasn't snoring. I poked him in the shoulder and snapped my hand back before he could break my fingers out of instinct. It was always dangerous to wake Crawford, even for alarm clocks. He'd murdered more clocks and innocent fingers than people and not even realized it.

He woke with a snort and a start, a fist shooting out. If I'd been inches closer I had no doubt that he would've broken my nose. Then his eyes opened and squinted to see me. I reached into his pocket, retrieved his glasses and pushed them onto his face.

"What?" he demanded gracelessly.

"Schuldig needs directions."

Crawford nodded and pointed into the back of the van there the seat had been removed to accommodate the mounds of blankets. "Go wake Nagi."

I looked into the darkness toward the back of the van and searched for the black head of hair in the blankets. Nagi was buried alive in the nest, sound asleep, his breath whistling softly through his nose. I pulled the blankets off and shook his shoulder. Nagi immediately started awake and I could feel him powering up, the air starting to crush my body.

"Nagi, it's me. We're here," I whispered. The boy blinked and looked at me and let me go.

"Hai," he whispered sleepily and started to pull his shoes on. I turned away and sat down between the two front seats to listen as Crawford quietly told Schuldig where to turn and park. The house we'd arrived at was dark, uninhabited, and of the traditional Japanese style. The only thing modern was the garage we slid the van into and closed behind us. We piled out of the van, a suitcase for each and a second trip as we grabbed the blankets, futons and food. We dropped everything in a mud room off the garage, shucked our shoes and secured the house, locking windows and doors and stringing traps along the way, just to make sure.

Once we were satisfied, we began to take bedrooms and unpacking, and since I had nothing personal with me, I was given the task of setting up the kitchen. There wasn't much, mostly non-perishables so I was left for several minutes watching Schuldig struggle to get his futon is exactly the right spot. I didn't ask why it mattered so much to him, he might've developed tics of his own.

I sat on the floor, munching on an oat meal cracker as he shoved the futon a little more to the center of the room, dropped blankets over it and fell back into bed. He propped himself on his elbows and cocked a smirk over at me and I offered him a cracker.

"No thanks, those things are disgusting," he said and beckoned me over. I got to my feet and brushed the crumbs off of my shirt, shaking my head. I sat down next to him and sighed.

"No, they're good."

"They taste like cereal."

"Big surprise there," I muttered. He lay back and closed his eyes, just breathing. It was nice, just being close again, in compatible silence. We used to sit like this all the time, me reading, him fighting off headaches. It had been in those early years of Swartz, before Nagi arrived. I think when I was fifteen…

"You were crazy then too," Schuldig laughed.

"You're welcome to watch, but keep the commentary to yourself."

He laughed again.

* * *

We'd been sitting there for a long time. I didn't know how long. Neither of us had a watch. Crawford slid the door open and stuck his head in.

"We're having a meeting. Nagi's making dinner," he said, voice and eyes flat. We were all tired, but preservation was more important than sleep. Schuldig and I creakily got out of bed and shook off our respective dozes. We followed Crawford into the kitchen I had just stocked and the three of us sat down at the table to watch Nagi cook. It was the first time I'd really got a good look at him.

He was taller, and his movements more graceful. As I had guessed before, his shoulders had broadened a little and his hair was longer, his bangs in his eyes. His hands were moving quickly as he threw rice into a cooker provided and started boiling some kind of canned vegetable. Across the room, plates, cups and silverware were floating into place settings of their own accord, like a ghost's hands were carrying them.

It sent me back to a time when I was doing all the cooking in the house, when I was teaching Nagi how to make himself various dishes. I smiled. It was nice.

"Welcome back, Farfarello," Crawford said, still gruff, but gentler than he had spoken in the van. I flashed a half-smile at him and looked down into my cup when it floated to its spot in front of me. A teapot fresh off the stove followed it onto the table and I reached out to start pouring tea.

"We've been busy since you were away. Esset is in shambles since the Tower. We killed the Elders and the rest of the corporation has been running around with its head cut off since. Officials have been scrambling for the headship, but there's so many vying for it that they can't regroup fast enough. We've been picking of the outposts around the world, like others in Tokyo, England, America, Russia, China, etc. We have most of them shut down or converted. We've been amassing an army against Esset."

I blinked, surprised. "Army?"

"We have a little over five hundred talents for our cause, and a thousand more just freed. The thousand aren't willing to fight and we won't make them, but we know they won't quickly knuckle under to what's left of the corporation either."

"Five hundred?!" I hadn't expected that many. There was something close to three thousand talents, plus another few hundred normals that worked within Esset. "Give me the rest of the statistics."

"Since the Tower; All normals eliminated, four hundred dead, decommissioned or unaccounted for, one thousand released, five hundred converted."

Seven, four, ten and five equals twenty-six. Thirty minutes twenty-six equals four.

There were four hundred talents left with Esset, talents who were vying for a world-class position in the most effective corporations along with Hershey's candy and Coke-cola. These would no doubt be the kinds of talents desperate to protect all they'd known, the truly awful neo-nazi's who had been brainwashed so effectively that if Esset had told them to stick their fingers up their asses and dance around in public, they would've.

I blanched.

"Who's among the last?" I asked, even though I really didn't want to.

"I doubt you remember him, but Loki has a good chance of gaining headship."

I remembered him. Anyone who'd met Loki remembered him.

I prayed our people were better.

"We've got Nox and Dementia with us, though. They should be arriving soon."

"I am not relieved."

Nagi's voice cut in, "Supper's ready."

* * *

_Fin Chapter 3_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I've hade those Oat Meal Crackers. Actually, I think they're Chinese because the Chinese matenance guy at my work just gives food like that away. Anyway, they really do taste like breakfast stuffs and they really are good.

Also, I notice that the characters are a bit OOC. This will be fixed soon enough. Sorry.

* * *

**To My Readers:**

**Rori Barton**: I went back to read the fic so far and I realized how very OOC most everyone seems to be…I'm not going to go back and rewrite it now (too lazy), but it's defiantly going to go back into the place soon. Anyway, I'm glad you're liking it. (munches oreo)

And don't feel bad. I thought Far biting the orderly's ear off was hilarious. Very Mike Tyson of him…my coworkers thought I was sick…It only made it funnier.

**Morbid Knight**Oh, this is feeling like a tea party with friends I haven't seen in years! (high-squeaky-excited voice) YAY!

What the fuck are taquitos?

Farfarello: She threw off my groove! (bites).

Poco: No more Disney movies for you…

**xKokurox**I have mental stability?Man, I totally didn't know that…But mental problems…naw, not really. I'm a bit ADD sometimes, but it's cool. It's the paranoia that gets me…I have got to stop watching those fantastically good horror flicks.

Ah, a fellow Catholic…Then you understand where Farfie's coming from better than most. (leers)

Here's your update! Hope you get your internet (ethernet, whatever) up soon.

Ooo, stalkers…just no Psycho scenes, okay? I saw the movie and Cabin Fever. I'd scared enough of the shower as it is.

Did you see Cabin Fever? Oh my God I never want to shave my legs again…


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: **I'm in the middle of Literature class and I've just finished this chapter, eleven pages of it and counting. They're talking about how novels reach varying levels of success…How bleak for me, the aspiring authoress…

I've been reading psychoanalytical books again and I know I really shouldn't. It kills whatever ethic I have and it's entirely my fault. Ah well…

About the very beginning: I found myself doing this just a few days ago, thought it interesting and thus write it down. As a heads up before anyone points out the my portrayal of the schizophrenic disease is false or unrealistic…it's a fanfiction, and what research I yielded my time for suited my needs to go so far as the very basics. I have friends with family with schizophrenia and while this is by no means a serious story, I'm only worry someone might think so.

Also, I know nothing about world events, so what I say about Ireland might be incorrect.

What was I talking about? No idea…but I think all flames should be put in the form of poetry.

* * *

**4**

* * *

I was standing at the top of the stairs, my face upturned, eyes closed. I was thinking about oreos and death. I had no idea why, but I knew it probably had something to do with suddenly coming off my meds. 

I hadn't been completely drug free since I was thirteen and that was almost a decade ago. Nine or ten years of my life was dependant on various pills, cures, remedies, depressants, and liters of tea. It was an Irish thing.

In fact, I wanted tea right now. I want a whole pot of something herbal and bitter right now, all to myself. I wanted it and a knife and an afternoon to myself so I could bleed this insanity out, I needed it out now…right now…right fucking now…

"Christ, Far, you sound like an addict. And stop standing in the doorway."

I turned around slowly, carefully, as if I might've flown away if I moved any faster and glared at Schuldig. He glared back and shoved me aside so he could march downstairs.

"If you're going to go crazy, wait long enough to get a jacket on, okay?"

I flipped him the finger.

"Fucking asshole."

* * *

I managed to get downstairs and brew myself a pot as I'd planned. It was nice; drinking quietly from a hot cup I couldn't feel burn. Liquid slopped over the edge of the cup and onto my fingers, turned the skin red, but I felt nothing. I smiled. On the edge of my vision, I could see Tink screaming at me to stop being stupid, to stop trying to hurt myself, but she was silent, her mouth moving and arms flapping and nothing coming out. I poured myself a fresh cup and stuck my fingers into the boiling tea and I saw her flinch, just barely heard her moan. 

I'd killed the impossible. Maybe I could kill her too…

I got out of my seat, turned a burner on the stove as high as it would go and opened my palm toward the flame. I could smell the gas and hear the sizzling flesh, but not her, not Tink. She was silent and squirming and in so much pain, it was perfect and I wanted more. I needed more silence. I needed to kill her.

Schuldig swore when he came to investigate the smell and tried to pull me away from the fire. He tried to slip into my head and control my motor skills, but I threw him out, tore into his mind like a boy into his sister's paper dolls. He screamed and clutched his head and I grabbed his hair and screamed back. I was laughing and swearing and ripping his hair and ripping his mind when something took hold of me and pulled us apart. Crawford was at Schuldig's side the second we were separated, checking to make sure I hadn't seriously hurt him while Nagi held me against the wall.

I was still laughing. Tink was still screaming somewhere in my head, but far away like a turned down movie.

Schuldig just looked at me, fear and fury and any number of other emotions in his eyes. And then nothing, just cold…

I felt his mind slither into mine, grab hold and twist. I felt my body collapse against the forcefield Nagi still held up and my eyes fall shut.

"We need to get anti-psychotics, Crawford, now." Schuldig's voice was hard, posing no question. "He'll tear himself and the rest of us apart."

"I'll make the call. You two get him restrained."

Then black.

* * *

My senses were reeling even before I opened my eyes. From that I knew, they'd hung me upside down. This was out of fear, though, not punishment like it had been all those times before. 

I remembered why I'd worked so hard to avoid this. I could feel nothing but the blood thumping in my ears and the air in my lungs. It was driving me insane already, this non-sensation, this floating.

And the boredom.

I knew they wouldn't come, but I tried calling anyway. If anything, I'd rather they'd just locked me in a room, but I realized there probably wasn't anywhere secure…This was best for their protection. I tried my best to settle in for a wait, but every second that passed was torture.

This was my pain, this was my understanding of pain.

I imagined this was how hell felt, or perhaps outer space. Just suspension, just nothing and pain from nothing, pain of memories.

Was there ever a time I knew pain in the truest human form, as everyone else does? Why was I the malfunction? In my family, in the world, why was there only one of me? I didn't want to be an individual. I'd wanted to be a priest one day; in the black robe other priests wore, with the same holy dogma. I wanted to be generic.

Fickle human, I thought viciously to myself and everyone else, you only want what you can't have; wings, gills, a sister's adoration, power, a special white collar…Black hair. I felt both an individualist and a anti-individualist well within me, right alongside the misogynist the blames Ruth for everything. All in all, I'd have to admit, a lot of this _was_ her fault. Freud would have a field day.

Waiting gives a person time to think, about the past, present, future; the nature of happiness and heaven, hell, space, and general philosophy…

I thought about Esset, about Nox and Dementia. I'd met Nox once in training. He was a Brit with teeth sticking out of his mouth like a rabbit's. He was an Illusionist, some kind of telepath that focused on visual control to move in and kill an enemy. He had helped me try to escape the island and I had my suspicions that he was also the one they tortured to find out where I was going, why and when. There were no hard feelings left for that though, I could understand. Under torture, I might've told them everything too…there were no loyalties in Esset. In fact, I was surprised he'd bothered joining us. He'd never believed in the goodness of human nature and usually said he thought it better if we just killed one another off. Perhaps that philosophy was why I remembered him so well.

I remember liking his hair; it'd always been so smooth. I remember liking his fatalistic idealism simple because it had entertained me to argue otherwise.

Nox was partnered with Dementia, a shapeshifter who'd taken on too many forms of targets and had forgotten her own likeness and mind by age fourteen, just two years after she'd been found and inducted to the organization. She was a nice enough girl, when she was inhabiting a kind personality, but Nox seemed to be the only person who could control her. There were rumors they were lovers, but I doubted it. Usually crazy people weren't all that interested in sex. We were too self-centered, in the best sense. The few times I'd met her, I'd kept my distance. I had feared her insanity might've been catching and, on some level, still did.

I knew she was only joining us because Nox had. I had no objections, I'd seen her fight. She was a demon after my own heart on the battlefield, as bloodthirsty and one could ever hope.

My mind drifted to Loki and I shuttered. I shook my head and forced myself to put all thoughts of him away. I didn't dare glance toward that direction again.

About that time, Nagi came in to ask me how I was.

"How the bloody hell do you think I am, mini-prick?" I demanded, imitating that God awful Austin Powers movie. If I could've moved my pinky to my mouth, he might've gotten the joke. As it was, he just glared at me in a decidedly Crawford-like way (case in point). I sighed and tried to get myself swinging, just to feel the wind created on my face.

"It hurts," I finally whined.

"You don't know what pain is, Farfarello," he said softly, almost kindly. I growled.

"Like fuck you know!" I shouted.

"I'll just come back."

"Get the fuck back here and get me down, you sorry son of a bitch! Get back here! Nagi! I swear to God I'll get you for this if you leave me here, I will!"

"Don't swear to a god you hate…bad karma."

And with that, he shut the door.

* * *

Some time later I had finally adjusted myself to hanging. The nausea was mostly gone, but my vision was blurry with a raging headache and I was, once again, grateful I couldn't feel it. Kudos to my dysfunction. Even through that and trying to get some sleep (which is damn-near impossible with the blood in your head), I couldn't help wishing I'd just tried holding out a little longer. It wasn't as if it would hurt me, going without medications, and if I could just keep my tics to a minimum there was no reason I couldn't just go without entirely. 

"Don't be stupid, Farfarello. You couldn't last a day without meds unless you're driving yourself crazy. If it was the nice, quiet, catatonic crazy, then yeah, it'd be fine, but you're the kind of crazy that blows up at anything, always have been. You're mind's been deteriorating since the tower, though, more rapidly than we'd expected.

"We're sorry to have to do this, really, we know it's painful, but until Crawford gets the meds there's nothing else we can do to guarantee our safety. You'll just have to deal with this."

I looked up and tried to focus on the smear of red-orange hair and black clothing in the doorway, but my eyes refused to listen. I shook my head and fixed a sneer onto my face.

"You sound like The Craw-fish himself, Schuldig. Is he force feeding you these lines or are you just picking them up out of that annoying streak you have?"

I could hear Schuldig's frown in his voice and that alone amused me enough to last the rest of the afternoon. I had caused this; I had managed to irritate the irritant. I had swatted the mosquito.

"I had come here to accept your apology, but if it comes in the form of being likened to blood-sucking insects, then forget it."

"But aren't you a blood-sucking insect? Aren't you the parasite the eats away the sanity of others? Have I, through sleeping with you, unwittingly given up my will to survive as a functioning member of society? And what have I to apologize for, if I am at long last seeking vengeance?"

His voice was dead, flat, dangerous. I could feel his glare and the cross of his arms over his chest, his weight as he leaned on the doorframe. "You ripped out my hair."

"Oh, heavens, I hope not all of it!" I gasped, laughing.

"Such a bastard…"

"Coming from you, what a compliment. At least mine's all in the family."

Schuldig was across the room before it even registered, the sound of his slap bouncing off the walls around us. I could feel my already red cheek blush deeper and I laughed again.

"Wonderful. I _was_ getting cold. Again?"

Schuldig just growled and took hold of the straps supporting my shoulders, hauled our faces close together. I could see the muscles of his arms bulging under the fabric of his shirt, the fury that wound his face up wrong. Even his pretty nose was wrinkled at the bridge.

"I got you out of that shithole, and this is how you thank me? Me! I got you out! Not Nagi, not Crawford, not Esset, not Kritiker, me! You ungrateful little shit! Crawford was right, I shouldn't have bothered, I knew you were too far gone, but no, I didn't. You wanna know why? Com'on, ask me, you'll love it!"

My shields wavered under the force of his anger, his confusion, his passionately intense emotions. I could almost feel the radiation of those feelings on my face, in my hair, in my head and that alone frightened me. For once, Schuldig frightened me.

"Just ask," he hissed, teeth bared and breath ghosting across my cheeks. It smelled like toothpaste. "Ask!"

A moment to savor my trepidation…

"Why?" I finally breathed. The moment I asked, his mouth was sealed to mine and his thoughts, his memories flooded into my head. I'd never been kissed like this before and it felt wonderful, but the images and sensations flickering rapid fire through me, the simple emotional facts I was force fed were too distracting. I couldn't focus.

/Because I'm a sentimental bastard and it's all your fault. It's your fault I cared at all. Two or three or six years ago I would've written you off, but I didn't and I hate you and you're going to ruin it all if you don't get it together because we gave you a chance when you shouldn't have had one, so fucking use it!/

My stomach roiled with something liquid, something that was not at all nausea but still felt like being drunk. It was sloppy, messy, wet and muddy. It was covered in blood and mosaics and the petals of every flower equated to death - a white lily, a carnation, a black Brazilian rose. It was horrendous, like Frankenstein's monster and fragile like a child's smile, held up like curtains across her cheekbones. It was like looking somewhere I hadn't looked in ages, had forgotten about and found again, the joy of recovering boyhood toys as simple as wooden blocks in the attic.

It made me sick and beautiful at once and I realized what real pain was, the human condition and the cause of all things. I realized the point of living, the point of everything.

He loved me. The son of a bitch loved me.

When he pulled away, his eyes were still cold, and his thoughts were tucked away behind his shields again, the sensation merely a memory. I was staring, shocked silent. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to trace his face in my fingers and find that love again, but no matter how I twisted, I couldn't escape.

"Do you get it now? Crawford thinks I'm a fool, and I am, but I can't just let you rot there…I can't and I won't…"

I whined, still trying to get out of my bindings, staring up at the floor.

"Let me down," I demanded hoarsely, struggling, "Let me down, I'm going to be sick…"

Schuldig disappeared to get Nagi and the two of them helped me off the hook on the ceiling and to loosen the legs of my straight jacket so I could kneel by the toilet without their help. When I was done vomiting, Schuldig wiped my face and told Nagi to go get some water. The moment the boy was gone, Schuldig had pulled me against him and pressed a cool towel to the back of my head to fight off any lingering nausea.

I could feel his fingers ghosting over the buckles of my straight jacket, wishing but not daring to unlock them. I pressed my face into his shoulder and fought to breathe and reorient to gravity. He asked me if I could get up and move to the room next door, but I shook my head. My legs were tingling wildly as the blood sloshed back into them, shaking almost as badly as frightened hands against his shirt.

He hoisted me to my feet, wrapped his arms around my hips and started dragging me out into the hallway, through the living room and into his bedroom and let me down on his bed. I lay there, shaking, silent, thinking.

Schuldig was leaning over me to tuck a blanket under my shoulder, baring his throat to me in the process. Instinctively, I noticed how easy it would be to kill him, just like anybody else. A bite to the throat, crushing it, would end his life in seconds. I didn't dare, move though; it was an observation, not an objective. He had bared his throat (and his mind) to me and I wouldn't give him reason to distrust placing the care of such things in my hands.

"Are you still cold?" he asked. I shook my head.

He sat back on his heels and stroked my temple with the pads of his fingers, watching me in silence for a few minutes.

"I shouldn't have done that. I knew so much would hurt you," he said. He was looking away now, at his hands, at the floor, are the wall across from him.

He's done the same thing to kill people, to make their heads explode. Too much emotion, too much feeling was indeed, bad. If he'd been any angrier, he could've killed me with ease, the same ease it would take to crush his throat in my teeth.

"I didn't know. I thought you hated that kind of thing," I said, avoiding the word. It was a curse between us, that word, the realization of that word's existence. It was worse than saying 'fuck' in a room full of first graders.

It was a horrible word, and he said it, "Love." He spat it out disgustedly, with self-hatred. I couldn't help flinching.

It felt like the Monthy Python movie…

Schuldig read the thought off my mind and laughed, so suddenly it caught be entirely off guard.

"Ni!" he snorted, "Ni! N!"

I laughed with him, "Do your worst!"

"Ni! Ni! Ni!"

I writhed as if in pain and begged him to stop.

"Ni!"

"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'Ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress in this period in history," Brad piped in. Schuldig and I whirled to face him, surprised that we hadn't heard him come in. He looked tired, but behind his glasses, his eyes were smiling. There was a small white bag in his hand at his side.

"Ni!" Schuldig shouted, pointing.

"And this is why I never brought friends home from school," Nagi muttered from the kitchen.

* * *

Brad had arrived with the same type of anti-psychotic I had taken during the Takatori years and gave them to me about an hour after the Monty Python reprise. Once we knew they were starting to take effect, the sleeves of my jacket were unbuckled and folded up so my hands were free. Even though I was still locked into the jacket, so long as I could move my arms, it wasn't so bad. My legs were still on hiatus, but I really didn't mind. Crawford was filling me in with details about the medications (ones I'd already heard months ago) and the upcoming weeks that lay in wait for us. 

"Nox and Dementia will be joining us in a few days. They're heading the eastern revolt while we, Swartz, will be getting ready to free America."

I was surprised they hadn't gone to the U.S. first. It seemed a bit ironic.

"What about Europe?" I asked.

"They're still mostly in Esset's hands, since they're closer to the source, but there's a lot of inner upheaval that started once the Elders died. Most of the factions that split off have gone into hiding and I doubt they'll be joining us-" The ranks he hadn't counted as helpful. "-but we'll get there."

"What's America like?"

"Chaotic," Crawford admitted dispassionately, pressing the bridge of his glasses into his nose, "Schuldig and I spent about a month there trying to assess the damage, but since the Esset facilities there are fairly new, the talents have turned against anything that might've stood for the corporation. There is no order. The homicide statistics of normals is atrocious."

Put lightly, I felt a twinge of uncertainty when I heard this. Crawford looked nervous, actually nervous and that alone was enough to unsettle even the strongest of men. Crawford was a rock among men, Swartz's St. Peter on which we were built. Without him, we had no base, and without his surety, we could fail.

We couldn't fail. We held the fate of the world.

"What about Ireland?" I ventured. I didn't really remember much about Ireland. What I knew was based on child-like ideals and stereotypes from around the world of green fields, rainy days, thick white sweaters, red hair, Gaelic and a little civil war. I knew there was more, that even in Dublin the other children told tales of their mothers or fathers just disappearing, kidnapping or murders, but it had never directly affected me. There was still unrest, even though the Protestants were starting to find less violent means to make their points, but beyond the brief articles I scoured from newspapers, I knew little.

But I was Irish and in love with the culture and in turn in love with the ideal it stood for. If anything, I would just as happily live in London than in Dublin, but deep down, it was still my home. Somewhere within me there was a little boy who still ran about the little split-level outside the city, who rolled on the carpets with his sister and stayed up late under the covers with a flashlight and a book. Somewhere, beyond the disillusionment, it was there…I could feel it when I sat still.

Crawford looked away briefly, as if he couldn't face me. It wasn't like him.

"Once the affiliates of the organization found out that the Elders were dead and the organization itself was dissolving, they broke contact. The faculties were emptied of talents, who have then disappeared. There were flare ups right after, but usually they stayed out of trouble. Up until now there was little disturbance from the talents, but there have been a few who came out in opposition of the Protestant change of course.

"In response, others have decided to confront that position, and then others and so on. They're picking off normals and the weaker talents like crazy. Dublin's been torn apart. It's worse then New York…"

"Shit…" But I couldn't do anything about it. My home was being ripped to shreds and I couldn't get up and stop them…I wanted to, though…

After a few minutes of silence, Crawford finally asked, "What are you going to do?"

"Stay with Swartz, go to America. Every country needs their civil war…Not that I'm unsympathetic, but I know going there would be useless. The four of us can't stop an army of pissed talents. Simple logic."

"Reductive logic."

"It still works. Optimism isn't going to help. Better to be careful and avoid impossible situations."

"That's what I said," Nagi ventured over his cup of tea. I'd forgotten him across the table. He'd been quiet, just listening…drinking all my tea…

"All your nasty tea. It's bitter. How can you drink that crap?" Schuldig whined, though he'd been drinking it faster than he could boil a fresh pot. I'd forgotten him too, no thanks to his unusual silence. He glared at me for daring. I shrugged.

"I'm not going to point out the simple irony you seem to constantly exist in."

"It's called a Passive-Aggressive Personality, thankyouverymuch, and you'll do well to remember it."

"And here I thought you were just crazy…"

"Schuldig, make your goddamn tea. Farfarello, we aren't done," Crawford snapped, silencing us both.

"Yes, Brad?"

"Because we weren't expecting your reentry into the team, we were not prepared to accommodate your specific needs. In short, we only have a limited supply of anti-psychotics and can only allow a little fluctuation in our current budget. You'll have to start lessening your dosages to a point where you can go without for periods, understand?"

"I understand," I relied moodily and with no small amount of worry.

"Schuldig was forced to quit smoking, so you're not being targeted for unfairness, just in case you're thinking that way."

I brightened minutely. This seemed fair.

"When do we start?"

"Now. Today is your only pill for the next couple of days."

"Great…"

* * *

Five days, two pills and zero episodes later, someone knocked on our front door and sent the household on edge. In seconds we were armed and ready for a fight, but when Schuldig scanned the guests, he told us to lower our weapons. 

"It's Nox. Far, put your knife down."

Nox was every bit as I remembered him, simply taller. His hair was still black and his teeth still overlarge, but his eyes had a certain comic flair I hadn't seen before. It looked as if he was always amused by something, as if the things people thought about were totally expected and funny. Schuldig would obviously disagree, and the stark difference in personalities was interesting. He hadn't even spoken yet.

"Brad! How are you?" he burst out, loud and happy and took Crawford's hand and shook it. Nagi and I looked on, shocked, Schuldig didn't seem to notice. No one talked to Crawford like a friend, not even us. No one outside of Swartz ever called him by name or dared touch him, but here it was, obvious evidence that Brad was indeed, a human being.

He'd always been a bit of an untouchable older brother to me.

"And Schuldig, pleasure as always," Nox continued, moving over to shake Schuldig's outstretched hand. Our redhead was smiling pleasantly back at Nox as if the man had saved our cat.

Cat…

Cat…

"What happened to Tennyson?" I asked, looking over at Crawford.

Crawford shrugged. "He wasn't at the house when we returned. WE assumed he was smart enough to get out while he could."

I'd liked that cat…

"Farfarello? What the hell happened to your face?" Nox asked, moving into the house to get a better look. I glared at him, ready to shove him off if he dared get into my personal space. "Your eye…"

"Had a run in with a client," I said gruffly, my voice a warning to drop the subject. Schuldig had said he didn't care about the scars and no one else in Swartz ever really mentioned them. I didn't like being reminded how extremely different I was from the norm.

"Gotcha, mate. Anyway, Dementia'll be here in about half an hour. She's rounding up our last assets and the lot. In the mean time, let's get busy!" Nox said as he shoved his way in and made himself at home.

I take it back, I could never live in London.

"I'll go make some tea," Nagi offered and disappeared.

* * *

**Other Sources: **

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (I wish I owned it, or even had an inkling of their genius, but I do not).

"Disorders of Personality" by Theodore Million, copyright 1981 by John Wiley & Sons, inc. Borrowed from campus library.

High school Latin classes and one too many viewings of the 'Addamm's Family Values'.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Okay, I'm in the middle of a lecture here…they're into the discussion part, but I've survived a rather entertaining view on WWI's beginning and the involvement of Big Business in politics (which he claims to be non-existent). Of anything, the dry humor sporatically placed was all that saved me from drifting off to sleep.

In any case, I got the ten extra points and skipped a class I hate at the same time…joy. I have to kill an hour now…I have a lot of writing and planning I need to do right now…

Finals…oh, god...I miss high school some days…

And I only just remembered that goddamn cat...

* * *

**To My Readers: **

Yes, I got your reviews, but when I attempted to restart the system buy deleting and resubmitting the entire story (goddamn it's waited six days before going ballistic and deleting all the reviews. In any case, I got them, read them, thank you very much for sending them, and have presently forgotten my replies.

There is no need to resend reviews. But I'm taking up to date ones…of course.

Normal review responses will be continued in the next chapter. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Notes: **There are reasons to break the fourth wall, you just don't need to know them.

And, oh goody! I managed to surpass my thirteen-page expectations! (Pats self on back)

Please enjoy.

* * *

**5**

* * *

A lot of people think they know fear.

They don't.

Fear is the absolute and unending terror created mostly by the mind, that only the slightest provocation can induce. It's more a mindset than anything else. Some people just aren't susceptible. The ones that are, are usually branded as freaks and sent to hospitals to deal with their usually destructive coping methods.

But why am I bringing this up now, first thing in the morning after a rather long and depressingly sleepless night?

No reason, just thought you should know, out of some insane need to break some imaginary fourth wall in my head. After all, you're figments and nothing more.

It's all Dementia's fault.

* * *

I wasn't on guard when she arrived. She was gussied up for a grunge band's show somewhere in western America. She was on our doorstep, soaked to the core with the rain that had been steadily falling since Nox arrived. We'd been sitting at tea when Schuldig perked up, eyes flickering to the door with a nervous expression, then back to Crawford in a silent plea for him to answer it. I went with my leader as backup and was a little surprised to find the mousey-haired girl on our stoop.

She glowered up at us silently, then shoved her way inside and into the kitchen to sink down on the floor by Nox's side. Never in my life had I seen such a display of both pure impoliteness and doggish loyalty. She hadn't even spoken yet. Schuldig slid a sidelong glance at me, smirking, but I ignored him. I was too busy skirting the room to stay as far away from the girl as possible. I had heard she could suck away someone's entire personality by a simple touch, and even if it was a rumor, I wasn't going to test it.

Crawford had shut the door by then and silently gone back to addressing his tea. I know it was for no other purpose than to occupy his hands, but to me it looked as if he was trying to get a future from the leftover dregs at the bottom of his white cup. I kept filling the cup before the tea reached the bottom, fearful of the future, fearful of _Them_…

When Nox and Crawford finished discussing long-term theories about overthrowing Esset, they moved onto immediate plans. It was mostly conduct and placement until we had more to our cause; Nox, Dementia and their crew only needed to lie low for a few months, keep tabs on life here and make sure no Esset operatives found out about them. It seemed simple, but it wasn't. They had a long and terrifying road ahead of them.

It was then, after nearly two hours of speaking, that Dementia spoke. Her voice was soft, girlish and rather pretty, but when she turned to me, her eyes were like black holes poked through her face into her vacant skull. There was absolutely no life within them and it made me shutter.

How could one function without the soul? She did…perhaps she was nothing but a ghost after all…possessed…demonized…

"You fear me," she fairly accused, looking up at me from the floor like a calm old dog. I had to look away. "You needn't. I won't hurt you."

"It isn't the pain I fear, woman," I hissed back and got to my feet, ready to leave.

"It's my lack of being, perhaps? One as devout as you could not possibly understand the possibility my survival…Do you believe I will steal your soul to replace mine?"

I looked at her, or tried to. I could only stare at the tip of her nose. "Would you?"

"No. You are a…friend…as is all of Swartz to us. Your kindness and effort to save us all from the corporation that's destroyed individually the lives of others has rescued you from any karmic backlash, though I cannot say the same for the fervent ones who still believe…I do not understand those who hold onto what is already dead."

It made sense, but it was entirely too creepy to stand. The hair on the back of my neck and arms was standing up and the muscles of my shoulders hadn't been so tight in years, not even in the hospital…

"Aren't you dead yourself?" I dared to ask. Nox glared at me, almost said something, but Dementia, that small, frail woman-thing, silenced him with a brief finger to his lips. The she-wolf turned back to me and smiled, dead eyes still, eternally blank.

"That depends on what your idea of death is…" She smiled, long and slow, like the corpse of a sated cat.

I backed out of the room and ran to Schuldig's apartment, locked the door and hid in the closet.

My entire life is a horror movie.

* * *

Because of my picking habit and the simple fact that the bare walls of the closet were sanded smooth and fine, there wasn't nothing for my fingers to pull at. They would not be satisfied with the knees of my worn jeans (a pair I'd borrowed from Crawford without his permission), or the sleeve of my tee (one Schuldig had lent me) or even at my naked toes. I instead, in punishment, reverted back to a response to fear I hadn't practiced since childhood. In a matter of moments, my fingernails were gnawed off to the quick, a couple of my fingertips bleeding from the sheer viciousness with which I had attacked them.

They may have been bleeding, throbbing in protest, but they were still and otherwise silent and that was enough for me.

When I was very young, my mother had set me up with a piano teacher, saying that as she had once learned in her girlish years to play, I, as the eldest child should too. Because it pleased her to hear me play, it made sense to me and I didn't protest even when the teacher rapped my knuckles for any wrong note. It wasn't as if I could've felt it, but I had never liked his shouting or complaining. I imagined he was a very unhappy man, someone who hadn't found the joys of faith and family. I didn't know anything, how could I? I was barely six and not in the least perceptive.

Even though it made my mother happy, she knew I didn't hold much personal enjoyment in the instrument, and had asked me a year or so later if I would like to switch to another. During that time, I had been teaching Valerie how to read notes and by the time she was five she was reading music better than her books from school. I was proud to have taught her, in my boyish way and had thus begun homemade lessons on the piano. She had taken to it instantly and showed promise even then. She had also let me off the hook in pleasing my mother that way, and when asked, I nodded and doggedly began searching for that perfect sound I wanted to learn.

In church, we had a small group of musicians to accompany the organ or piano for hymns. There was a violinist, a cellist and, of all things, a saxophone, plus the entire choir, or which I was a part. During practices, I was given the chance to speak to the musicians individually and listen to their instruments with interest. The cello was my favorite, a calming sound of a mother's deep voice when you pressed your ear against her breast. It as a sound that could carry a boy through furious rainstorms, harrowing in the face of some internally broken clockwork that was already showing wear.

At that time I had been hearing voices. Sometimes it was the sound of two people speaking in the dead of night that would wake me, and upon searching, find no one there. At first I had thought our house was haunted, but my parents had assured me that they were the first owners or the relatively new development and there was little chance of ghosts. I had been briefly reassured, though the voices had continued. By the age of seven or eleven, the same time I had taken up the cello, the voices were loud and directing, often speaking to me when I was sure to be alone, as if they knew too that speaking to oneself was a punishable offence. I never slipped up then and I kept them to myself.

For instruments, one usually had to keep one's fingernails short. As I habitually bit my fingernails, it was never a problem, though my sister had often complained of their ragged edges scratching if we ever had a tussle. She, upon loosing, would go crying to our mother and complain that she had lost because I had scratched her on purpose, though we both knew it was no such thing. I was stronger and larger and heavier than her, but she had always enjoyed getting me into trouble.

I excelled with the cello and my teacher, a huge widow from the church community who was very fond of teacakes and never missed a chance to visit friends, adored me. She treated me much like a surrogate son and I flourished under her direction. I fear I also grew a bit pudgy myself at that time, since she had a habit of feeding me and I was too polite to decline. She showered me with praise and enjoyed flaunting me to friends and lesser students.

'A prodigy, the next Mozart, a musical genius!' she would titter and I would smile sheepishly, wishing desperately that I could slip away and hide. I never said anything, but the voices still told me it would be better if I corrected this, told her and her friends that I was not, indeed a prodigy. The more vicious ones often said that when others looked at me, they looked on with hatred, and that was why I had no friends in school. They hated me because I was so much closer to perfect than they.

I was. I had everything. I was the best student in my class and my teachers loved me, worshipped the very ground I walked on. I had my faith and a wonderful future of a devout priest waiting for me to simply grow up. I had more talent than the other cello students under my teacher's direction and I had a supportive, loving, wonderful family with parents that rarely ever argued and an adorable, friendly sister who looked up to me as her example in the world. It was perfect, I was perfect, and I wanted nothing more. How could I? One who was blessed never asked for more, it was selfish.

The only thing wrong with me was everything wrong with me, the voices, the nightmares, the unshakable terror of something lurking, always lurking. I didn't understand pain as others did, nor did I look like others, though I had desperately wished to. I gnawed and gnawed in worry, but otherwise wouldn't let it show. I couldn't, because if I did, something terrible would happen.

Every psychologist in the world would be able to identify this as paranoia. To me, the eight-year-old boy, it was nothing more than a terrifying knack, some twisted deformity better kept secret. I was sure something was other there to get me, to get my family, to ruin it all.

It arrived in the form of a young woman, a nun who had been transferred to our church seemingly by chance. She was a tad high-strung at first glance, but otherwise very friendly. I took to her instantly because I related with her nervous nature and we were blissful friends for several years.

* * *

It was a half hour later that Schuldig found me. I had been pleasantly calming down in the dark when he pulled open the closet door and peered in at me by the soft light of the room that spilled in behind him. He cocked his head and pulled me out into the room, looking at my face in curiosity.

"The real world is awful, but this fantasy has ceased being fun," I mumbled and scanned the room for others. It was empty but for us, thank god. I was afraid that if I saw the freakish woman again, I'd go stark raving mad, catatonic with fear, 'petrified' like those god-awful Harry Potter films.

Schuldig stroked my face with his fingertips, cool against my heated cheek. His face, when I looked at it, was smudged, fuzzy.

"Do I have a headache?" I asked, surprised. Perhaps my vision was finally going bad. I was old enough now and perfect vision was rare. What was I thinking?

"A little, yes, you've been crying. Why does she frighten you?" he asked as I flexed my jaw like a snake unhinging to swallow an egg. I heard my joints crack and Schuldig flinched. "Disgusting."

"She shouldn't exist. She shouldn't be walking around like she has free will. She is nothing, just a ghost, and I believe quite firmly in ghosts." Rightfully so. I'd seen a great many of them in my life, living and dead alike. They were all the same and they were all terrifying.

"Let me get some aspirin for you," he whispered and slipped away, leaving me helplessly alone in the room. Without any Western furniture, the room felt larger, more open. Instinctively, I feared the inability to hide. In my youth, I'd depended wholly on the forests outside hospitals to protect me, camouflage me. Without the woods, the magic life within those thick trunks or the remnants of them in the dead furniture, I felt like a deer out in an open range. Nothing happened. I was tempted to get back into the closet, but Schuldig's reappearance halted me. He looked at me quizzically, but said nothing.

"What's the point of all this?" I asked as I swallowed the pills and sank down on the futon. I entertained the idea of hiding under the blankets as a little boy would, but didn't bother. I could never hide from myself, but that way.

"What?" Schuldig squawked, utterly without grace. It seems he hadn't been watching my mind to follow my inner thread of the conversation. He usually did this, not just for me. It seemed that without his powers, his social intelligence dropped severely. Whenever he couldn't look into someone, he either withdrew from the situation entirely or inexpertly muddled through. It seemed that this case was the latter.

I smiled at the idea that he couldn't follow my thoughts and that because of their unattached nature to one another; he could be lost in seconds, like Crawford sometimes was, if I didn't connect the dots for him. Sometimes I enjoyed watching the others flail about trying to understand me, but now it was a waste of time that we stole from the hands of Esset, seconds that chanced death. It was dramatic of me to think so, but I have always enjoyed drama and perhaps I wasn't too far from the truth anymore.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Schuldig asked tiredly, pressing his fingers into his eyes and handing over the headache pills. I took them and swallowed them dry in silence, unable to explain.

Schuldig looked down at me and sighed. He knelt on the floor, his chest between my legs and reached up to stroke my face again, his fingers smoothing through the hair at my temples. I closed my eye and leaned into his touch with a soft breath, more than ready to fall asleep under his touch. Schuldig gives the best massages and I was more than able to trick him into giving me one, but I didn't. I was tired.

"Why were you crying?" he asked softly, barely a whisper.

"I don't know."

"Are you sure?"

"Am I ever sure?" I snorted and pulled away, curled my legs against my chest and held them, my chin on my knees. I stared at Schuldig, his utterly calm face. He'd changed those past months; I think he'd finally grown up.

"I'm remembering things, Wendy Darling, good things, awful things, but you grew up. I see myself sometimes, I've grown up too…I suppose it couldn't be helped."

"Freud would have a hay day with you, Farfarello," Schuldig laughed and leaned against the edge of the bed, looking up at me, "Some strange obsession with God, with your mother, with Peter Pan. Life isn't a storybook, my dear."

"And yet I still hear someone narrating for me," I sighed piteously, "Perhaps it's God. Perhaps I am no less a pawn than when I believed."

"You've always believed in God, Far, I don't think you've ever stopped."

"I stopped believing in the goodness and greatness and all-powerful-ness of God. He's a monster who creates monsters in his own image. He's insane. To destroy him would be a mercy."

"There is no mercy."

"Not in man," I said softly, "Not in any man but a man who has killed. When one kills, one sees death, one ends suffering through death. There is nothing after death but endless, dreamless sleep. That is the mercy. What other man could do that?"

"You make no sense at all and all the sense in the world," Schuldig laughed, "Impossible."

I smiled. "Perhaps you mean 'improbable'?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I don't believe it ever did," I replied pleasantly.

* * *

The next day it was raining, soft but heavy, the air thick with fog. It was humid enough to make my hair curl tight around my head and Schuldig had the audacity to say I looked like a Renaissance angel. For some reason I slapped him and he was sulking ever since. Crawford, Nagi and Nox had left to go and see other revolutionaries and to buy supplies. I had been told that we'd be leaving in a couple of days. It seemed as if my life at this point was marked solely by the days between events. Two days there, three days here, two more days, and on with the cycle.

I hadn't had a pill or sedative in fourty-six hours. I had ripped my fingernails almost completely off with chewing, dug holes into the weak knees of my borrowed jeans and worried the edges of the tee shirt into ragged shreds. Schuldig had been furious (it was one of his favorite shirts), but was still too busy ignoring me to bother with scolding.

I was outside watching the rain when she came up behind me and lit a cigarette, a thin black one I knew came from Russia. I think that's the only place that produces that brand. The flick of her lighter and the sweet wisp of smoke were all that told me she was there at all. She was as silent as the smoke she breathed, a fabrication in real life. It was terrifying.

She sat down beside me and smiled, friendly-like. I was instantly suspicious and eyed her, though she had been thoughtful enough not to sit on my blind side and really make me paranoid. She only smiled wider and offered me a cigarette. I shook my head and wanted to turn away, but I noticed she had changed a little, her hair was darker and her eyes were slanted slightly in a Northern kind of way. Her skin was pale, though, whiter than pearl. Her voice was soft, as before, but there was a certain Russian lilt to it when she spoke now. A mood swing perhaps?

"It's calming. It could help," she said.

"Isn't nicotine a stimulant?" was my rhetorical reply.

"Schuldig smokes and he seems pretty relaxed."

"You don't know him. He's never relaxed." All those years with him and he hadn't got me hooked on anything. I had a good track record, I didn't need this.

But I wanted it. If she said it would help, I was at the point where I willing to believe anything. Even if it was a lie, I wanted lies. Lies were all that sustained me.

Lies were my hope. Without them, all the truth would cripple me.

It was cliché, but I couldn't handle the truth, not anymore.

I took the cigarette offered and slipped it between my lips long enough for her to light it. My first soft puff was enough to make my eyes water and my throat close. I coughed violently for a moment, then took another, slower breath of smoke. My lungs opened to the suggestion that this was okay, and softly, the blue-grey smoke spilled out of me, through my mouth, my nose, from around my eyes, I'm sure.

"Not so bad, eh?"

"Something artistic about this kind of death, I have to admit," I said through another long drag off my black stick of burning decay. Oh, how poetic. She smiled wider.

"Not too fast or you'll get sick." I nodded and we smoked together in comparative silence. I lay down and stretched over the boards of the porch and watched the rain.

I was starting to get used to her. I was thinking of her as a kind of ghost now, and that was for the best. Thinking of her as a real person threw people off. She was just too damn weird.

"How long since you've had something?" she asked out of nowhere. I didn't look away from the rain, but decided I might as well answer. There was little point in keeping silent as we were both on the same team.

"Almost two days."

"How long have you been on them?"

"Almost a decade."

"And you were up to how many?"

"One three times a day, every meal, but hospitals like to keep you under. The haze makes you pliant, makes you easy to subdue and control."

She hummed in affirmation. She had spent her own amount of life in a hospital. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

We went back to our silence and smoked. My cigarette was down to the filter now and I flung it out into the yard. Dementia got up and stalked out into the rain to retrieve it.

"No trash. They could find it and know. They have those kinds of psychics," she breathed angrily. Abashed, I took the drenched and half-melted cigarette and got up to throw it in the trash. I came back and sat down again, just as meekly. She was still angrily smoking.

"How long have you been like this?" I asked.

She looked over at me, confused. My question was too vague. I floundered for words.

"I meant, how long have you been with Esset?"

"I don't know. I joined when I was fourteen. By then, I'd forgotten most of myself. I don't know how old I am now."

"That's sad," I said wistfully, but she just shrugged.

"I don't miss it. It's better to forget. But you don't seem to type to agree, am I right?"

"No…I'm not. Even so, you do remember some things, right?"

"I remember meeting Nox. I remember working with him, some of the killing, falling in love with him…Yes, I love him, but he does not feel the same for me. It's just as well. I'm too capricious. I'd hurt him in the end."

"Bitter of you…"

"Coming from you, I'm surprised. You seem the bitterest member in Swartz," she laughed and put the cigarette out in an ashtray she had brought with her. She just smiled at me.

I picked at the holes in my jeans, watched my fingers unravel the threads of denim.

"Schuldig often likes to accuse me of optimism, but he's very far from the truth."

We laughed softly and lit two fresh cigarettes and sat smoking again in silence. We enjoyed one another's presence, our simple familiar knowing. It was as if I had my sister back, or if I had gone back in time to when we would sit quietly with one another and watch the world go by; the sunset, the rain, the children on the street playing…Her presence was actually quite soothing and I supposed that was one reason why Nox liked her close by. For someone as capricious as she claimed, she seemed very steady.

Esset likes duality in people, I suppose, as everyone I've met from them has been much like that. Sometimes that two-sidedness is all one should depend on. Esset operatives, even forcibly retired, aren't exactly trustworthy.

My thoughts shutter to a stop when I heard Schuldig's footsteps scuffling out to the porch.

"Hey, are you two going to sit out here and do nothing, or are you going to lend me a smoke?" Schuldig asked, interrupting our peaceful moment. Dementia gave him a black cigarette with a smile. I just glared at him.

* * *

We're leaving all of Japan in the hands of Nox, Dementia and a small army, trained to kill on sight any Esset members. Our meager belongings were packed and I was sitting in the car, smoking as I waited for the others to come out of the house. Crawford was going over last-minute details with Nox and Schuldig and Nagi were grumpily trying to drag him away. Our flight was in a couple of hours and we still had to get through security, which always took a half hour because of all the metal plates in my head and pins in my bones.

A few minutes later, Crawford and the others slipped into the car and we started driving to the airport, silent as death as Schuldig and I smoked in the back seat. So much for quitting…

* * *

We got through security without any problems. Schuldig blocked the minds of anyone nearby when I set the alarms off. No one noticed us, and we settled down in our seats in record time.

We were armed to the teeth. If anyone dared to approach us in mid-flight, we could've killed them in a heartbeat. The thought was comforting even when the door sealed shut and I felt the plane start to move. Schuldig held my hand tightly, projected quiet images into my head, and I settled my head on his shoulder.

"You smell like an ashtray," he murmured.

"So do you," I whispered back as I pressed my nose into his jacket. He heard him laugh and felt him stroke my hair.

"We should get some sleep. It's a long flight."

I nodded and we drifted off together.

* * *

The plane landed with a screech in Washington D.C. We'd had to stop in L.A. to switch flights, but besides that it was pretty much non-stop. Swartz quickly grabbed our things and scuffled off the plane and through the terminal, skipping customs entirely. No point in it, if we were trying to stay invisible. Once we were out in the predawn sunlight, Crawford set his bag down and stretched. Schuldig tried to hail a cab, but the man in the hideous blue car down the walk just ignored him.

"Were to, Crawford?" I asked, excited, "Can we go touristing?"

Crawford just glowered at me from behind his glasses, a look that obviously said 'no'. He turned toward the cab, jammed his fingers in his mouth and whistled so loud I thought my eardrums would burst. I suddenly remembered my last visit to New York and how at home Crawford had been there, back in his hometown. It made me smile.

The cab driver down the way was startled at the noise Crawford dared to make first thing in the morning, but he started the car and drove over when our leader gave him a stern, dangerous look. Schuldig smugly ignored the driver and shoved our bags into the trunk as Crawford gave directions and slid into the car.

Naturally, Crawford took the front seat, and the back was left to Schuldig, Nagi and me. Schu and I each took window seats and Nagi got stuck in between us because he was so thin. The entire time the boy complained that we both stank, but we ignored him and stared out the windows at the passing monuments. Even in the early morning light, through the traffic and noise and city grime, the place gleamed with white stone markers of history, and the ambiance of sheer majesty seemed to float like the fog off the river just a half mile away. It was beautiful.

The traffic, though, was enough to make me curse quietly under my breath. The drivers were insane, weaving in and out as if they had no idea where they were going, which I'm not sure they were. Someone nearly broadsided our cab and the drivers of both car and cab shook fists at one another. It was harrowing, and we hadn't even reached the safe house yet.

We were dropped off in front of an aging apartment building that Crawford claimed was close to the local tube system, something the people here called a 'Metro'. Made no sense to me, then name, but I kept my inane comments to myself and helped our luggage into the building and up the elevator. It was late enough in the morning by then that anyone going to work would be gone and very few people would see our entry, just as Crawford had planned. We were quick about getting into the apartment and securing it. Once that was finished, we took the time to look at our living conditions.

It was a loft apartment, obviously a rental with the cheap and mismatched décor. I couldn't complain, though, at least it was better than the house in Japan, better even than our apartment with Takatori. Schuldig and I claimed one of the bedrooms and dropped our stuff on the floor to mark it. Nagi wasn't fast enough and ended up with the couch. If it had been just him, Crawford and me, I'd have happily taken the couch, but it was more economic for Schuldig and I to share. It would keep heating costs low, if anything.

Crawford set up a makeshift headquarters on the kitchen table, already on a laptop by the time Schu and I had gotten back. Nagi was hooking the loft up to the internet and making sure all our electronics were online and working well, then he made a second check for bugs. I found a battered kettle and started making tea on the stove while Schu sat down to fix the clogged coffeemaker. We had a little food, so I made the team breakfast and within the hour the four of us were sitting around the table, eating quietly. We were waiting for the great plan from our leader.

Crawford didn't disappoint, and soon after he'd finished off his biscuit and coffee, he looked up at us and actually smiled.

"You've done well, men. We're halfway through the worst of it. We're starting the next phase. Are you ready?"

It was rhetorical, but we nodded anyway. Crawford continued.

"As you know, most of eastern Asia is liberated and our forces are working west. We are to start from the west and work west. We're to meet halfway in eastern Europe and together we're going to take Esset head on."

"If we were starting from the west, shouldn't we be in California?" I asked, feeling impertinent, but sensible.

"Actually no. We have a few operatives taking care of things there, but besides a few outposts, there is little there. The Capital is the center of almost all political activity and thus it is the opportune spot for an Esset headquarters, exactly what we're here to eliminate."

"Spectacular," I said with little enthusiasm. Crawford looked sharply at me, but said nothing. I guess he chocked my attitude up to the lack of caffeine and medications.

"In the mean time, get some rest. We'll go over details when we are rested and aware. Six hours is enough. I'll meet you here at noon."

Dismissed.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 5_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **Oh, criminey, can I remember all I want to say? How do you like Demntia? Not as bad you thought, eh? She isn't, not really. About her cigarettes: I have no idea if they're singularly Russian or not. I got the idea from the book White Oleander.

Don't you wonder what exactly keeps her moving and alive? She's fascinating.

The piano thing, is much a trust story for me. My mother played, so I had to learn. After thirteen years of lessons, I'm never touching another piano again. I enjoy the music, but not making it. I've never played cello, though it's a pretty instrument as well.

The cello references are from one of my other stories "Cello Prose", which is another Farfarello fic. No other way do I consider them connected.

I decided on the crew going to Washington, D.C. for three reasons:

It really is kind of the center of US politics and definitely an ideal spot for Esset operatives to get their claws into the heart of the nation.

I haven't seen it show up in other fics.

I live close by, so I know the area. For once I won't be flailing around in guesswork. I've lives close to the capital my entire life, and I know enough about it to passably write. And yes, I do tour around the area. Even so, I've never understood why people from other parts of the country would be so desperate to see it. Maybe it's a local feeling all around the world, that their city doesn't seem a place for people to go for fun when all you want to do is get out. I'm just afraid that we'll be the first to die in a war on the country.

Next episode: Crawford reveals his wondrous plans! (Notice how I've delayed so long…yeah, I'm lazy.)

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**Rori Barton**Yeah, it does kind of suck. It could be worked against them, in the very end. Perhaps and perhaps not. We'll see.

**StarTrekObsessed**(blink) Couldn't you have just lied and stroked my ego a bit? (laughs) And yes, the dread 'L' word has been said. I SAID there'd be curse words, didn't I? Anyway, thank you, and I don't think I would've been happier if the story (stories) was (were) shorter. It would seem rushed, wouldn't it? In the sense, I agree completely. Hope to hear from you again soon.

**xKokurox**Hoshit, really? I've never inspired storied before…(preens) Oh, God, it's like opening a safety raft on a small plane, my ego is undoubtedly inflated. For some reason, the image of a bloated tick is coming to my head. Maybe it's all those nature shows I watched…

Here's your update. Happy effin' Halloween. I'm happy I got it done at all. I've got a lot of make up work for classes I need to do. Ugh…college sucks an dI don't care what anyone says. It's awful and I love it. Maybe this is my form of self-mutilation…oh yes, I do so love to wallow in self-pity…

Attention span? Who needs that? I laugh! (laughs)

Anyway, might I suggest a library? They have computers.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes: **I just finished Wraeththu! Six months and I'm finally done! Woo!

For those of you who don't know what that is, google it. It's good.

Enjoy the chapter. Poco now has a plot…:3

* * *

**6**

* * *

Somewhere in my dreamscape was a buzzing noise. It was soft, but persistently irritating. No matter what happened in my visions, there was always that noise…Noise, noise, noise…

Noise.

Slam!

My eye flew open and I stared at the clock that had been flung across the room. I turned over and watched as Schuldig got out of bed and started pulling on his clothes, cursing to himself in various languages. I groaned and tried to turn over and go back to sleep, but Schuldig's hand was on my arm, shaking me.

"Get up, Far. Crawford still needs to go over plans with us," he said softly, almost gently. I looked up at him and sighed. No use fighting. It was better to sit through the briefing and try to get some sleep afterwards, assuming one didn't hear something too traumatizing…Sometimes it was like that. Still, better that than a pissed-off Brad Crawford pounding on my door.

I slowly sat up and reached for my eye patch on the nightstand. Schuldig took the slip of fabric from my fingers and slipped it around my head for me with a smile, a silent kind of apology that told me he didn't really want to get up either. I smiled back and waited for him to finish so I could dress. We headed for the kitchen together, quiet, but confident we could handle anything Crawford decided to hand us.

* * *

Phase two of 'Mission: Impossible', aptly named by our red-headed cat, was supposed to be us, Swartz, going into the U.S. Esset faculties and literally tearing it down and freeing whoever would be freed. It seemed simple, yes, but it wasn't. We had no doubts that the headquarters in Europe had warned the U.S. that we were coming and that the target in question would be more than ready for us. Our job, complicated by the newly-awared faculties, was not only to take out the base and free 'prisoners', but to get ourselves out safely.

The rule was; no one stays behind for another outside the team. If one fell behind, they were left behind. Keeping the team together was more important to potential followers to our cause. Why? We had no idea how compatible new operatives to whoever was left of Swartz. Simply, we'd had years to feel one another out and worked best together. One never fucked with chemistry.

The rule was; if one wasn't sure about an operative, kill them. A dead operative is better than a double-agent could feed information about us and others to HQ in Europe.

The rule was; don't stop for anything, get in, get out, and run like hell. Go to a safe base with whoever one grabbed and stay there until the leader contacted each team member.

The rule was; if the leader was captured or killed, do not go back for him. If the leader went missing, assume dead and hack file-plans from his computer. Keep on with the mission, there would be time to mourn after the mission was complete and Esset was dead.

I supposed that was what explained why I was crawling around the apartment, taping tin foil to the walls and helping Nagi hook little fire-starting devices up to a switch so we could burn the loft without affecting the rest of the building like in that movie 'Conspiracy Theory'. I felt I should've been writing a newspaper instead of my life's story.

We feared the almighty _Them_.

Schuldig said I shouldn't have watched so much television during my hospital stay. I had the grace not to tell him that I'd seen in long before the Takatori days, when he had brought it home and watched it for fun. He knew I was thinking it, and that soured his mood for an hour.

Crawford was constantly at the kitchen table, working at the computer. We assumed he was keeping in contact with other factions, as he was more or less the head of the entire revolt, but we didn't ask for sure. We didn't really think we wanted to know. Schuldig was out buying groceries and getting a feel for the transportation systems around town for us. He should've been back with supper in an hour.

Nagi had taped the last fire-starter to the wall and sat down next to me on the floor, looking tired. He leaned against me, side to side, and sighed. He looked older, too old for a teenager…

I ruffled his hair and laughed softly.

"What?" he grumbled, "What's funny?"

"No idea. Must be the craziness, eh?"

"Must be."

I laughed again.

The lock on the door jiggled and Nagi and I were on our feet in seconds. I could feel him power up, the air crackling with static electricity even as I reach out to test Schuldig's team link and a kitchen knife I kept in my belt. Schuldig's mind touched mine, seething silently with annoyance.

/It's me. Open the door/

"It's Schu, Nagi. Stop before you set something on fire," I ordered and moved to unlock the door. Nagi looked at me for a brief second, then relaxed and eyed the door as I opened it. Schuldig was leaning against the door frame, bogged down by shopping bags and demanded I make myself useful and carry some.

"Goddamn subway makes no goddamn sense. Too many colors you'd think a gay man conceptualized the idea…" he was muttering as I grabbed several bags and asked Nagi to help too. The boy and I just laughed at Schuldig, relieved, and put everything in the kitchen. Nagi stayed in the kitchen to put things away as I went back to help Schuldig gat the last bags inside and the door secured.

"Got lost, didn't you?" I snorted. Schuldig was angry enough to spit, and only just stopped himself when he remembered where he was. I gave him a look and he grumbled out a 'yeah' and left.

Guess I'd be doing dinner myself…again.

* * *

A week later and we had located the Esset faculty building. We'd managed to get a couple of floor plans, by the sheer genius of our leader, and had made the doomsday plans.

U.S. Esset H.Q., prepare to die.

* * *

/I'm in position, Oracle. Waiting for the signal/ I thought in a hushed mental voice. It was dangerous to use telepathy in the faculty, just in case they had telepaths inside, but Schuldig was working hard to keep the link safe from any mental attacks. I didn't know where he was hiding, but it was defiantly off base.

Crawford, Nagi and I, though, were in three strategic positions to make our move. I was in the air vents, crawling my way to a designated spot above the security room, where I would wait for the others to get set up and take out the guards and turn off the cameras when given the word. Once I was finished with the cameras, I'd let Crawford and Nagi inside the building. Nagi would go to the rooms where all personnel information was kept to take what we needed and destroy the rest. Crawford would start scouring the building for potential comrades and eliminating dangerous operatives. He would later meet up with me and we'd make our escape, destroy the faculty, and then split again to various safe houses around D.C. We'd wait two days for the word from Crawford and meet again at a designated safe place with whoever we'd taken with us and continue on to the next phase of the mission. If there was no word, Crawford was to be assumed dead and we would wait another extra day before meeting in a different safe house in Virginia.

So here I was, lying on my stomach in a cold air vent, staring down through a vent at my next victims, waiting for Crawford's word. It was soft and calm when it came, exactly as expected.

/We're ready. Go/

I unscrewed the vent's screws with a tiny screwdriver and lifted out of its fame and set it aside as quietly as possible. I glanced down to see if the guards had heard anything, but they were still staring boredly into the televisions, sipping their coffee. Good, they hadn't heard. I slid feet first out of the hole and landed silently on the floor behind them, my soft-soled boots sucking up noise like velvet drapes in an auditorium. Still unnoticed, I slipped my arms around the nearest guard's neck and snapped his head to the side, severing his spine with a crack. He died with barely a gurgle of protest and sank into my arms, a dead weight, as his partner turned, his hand going for his gun as he cursed.

I leapt on him, feet on his thighs and fingers around his neck. I grinned into his face as I crushed his windpipe with my thumbs, even though the black mask I wore prevented him from seeing it. He stared at me in horror, his eyes asking why I was doing this even as he struggled for life, but there was no reason to tell him a thing. He died in a matter of moments and I got out of the chair to let him slide to the floor. I took his chair and started switching off cameras and security alarms.

/Guards are eliminated, alarms and cameras off. Ready for next step/ I murmured and I could half-feel Crawford's nod of approval. I knew by now Nagi and Crawford were already on the move, letting themselves in and splitting up. I went to go hunt down any other nearby guards and then started looking for the cell blocks.

The first steel door in a row that stretched several meters down the hall had the main lock that held all the doors closed, like the kind one found in high-security hospital wards, where one pull of a lever and all the doors would fly open. I yanked the bar down and stood back as the doors creaked open. Slowly, people came out, looking bewildered.

There were children and teenagers and a few very young adults who glanced at one another in surprise, wondering what had happened and why they were being let out, cringing as if they were going to be tortured. I briefly wondered what they had gone through here, and then just as quickly stopped wondering. I knew already; no point in asking. I clapped my hands to get their attention and they froze where they stood, terrified.

"I am a member of team Swartz of the revolt and we've come to eliminate this faculty. Those of you who know our cause and are willing to follow us, please come with me. Those of you who are unwilling to join, please leave while you still can," I shouted loud enough so my voice would carry down the hall. They stood shock still for a second, and then started smiling, moving toward me, thanking me. I staved them back with an angry look and upturned hands.

"No time. We have to go now. Come with me." I turned and started out of the hallways toward the exit of the building, setting down blocks of C-4 as I went. Nagi had already set up the detonators, so all I had to do was press a button as I went along and drop the blocks where I thought they'd do the most damage (around support beams and by exterior walls).

It felt stupid, blowing a building up in the middle of the most neurotic city in the country, that took every little threat as a sign of terrorism (when, in fact, the very existence of the building was a base for said 'terrorism'). We'd be hunted down by the FBI, no doubt, but we wouldn't be caught. We weren't stupid. We were invisible.

I met up with Nagi as I and the group that was following me ran for the door. Brad was at the exit with his own small band of newly-freed followers when we got there, setting the last bomb in place while he waited. We all nodded to one another, split the former-prisoners who had followed among the three of us and left for our set safe-houses.

/Good luck, men/ Crawford's voice whispered to us as he left, heading north. Nagi went south and I headed east. I stopped in a deserted subway stop with my group and waited for the sound of the Esset faculty building exploding before looking over my group and speaking.

There were six of them, all young children, who were dirty and thin and looked up at me with huge, fearful eyes. I decided to leave my mask on for a while longer, as not to frighten them any more than they already were. I looked them over.

"Which of you speak English?" I asked. All hands went up and a boy, obviously older than the others, stepped up to me, looking tough. He was probably a leader in this small pack, and I could tell from the way he watched me that he didn't trust me at all. Good. I didn't like sheep.

"You're from Swartz? We've heard about you from the guards and the trainers. They say you're evil," the boy said, though he sounded as if he didn't believe it. His accent suggested he was of some French decent, or maybe Canadian. I just nodded.

"My name is Louis and I'm the oldest of us. I don't believe you're evil at all."

"How nice," I muttered, glancing up at a sign that said the next train would be coming in two minutes. I could already hear sirens. The police would be here in a matter of minutes to find us, no doubt. "I'm to take you to a safe house. We can make introductions there. In the mean time, do you think you could help me take care of the others until we get there? We have to stay mostly out of sight and as quiet as possible so we don't attract attention. Do you think you could do that for me?"

He nodded once, sharply and turned to the others to get them into a line, each child taking the hand of another to make sure they didn't get lost. How convenient, kinds who could work alone. It gave me time to pay more attention to our surroundings…

"That mask makes you really suspicious, sir," Louis said. I nodded and slipped off my knapsack so I could dig out a long coat and hat and put them on just before the train came. We all shuffled into the car and sat down in a small group. I counted the stops on a map on the wall and counted them off on my fingers. When the train stopped where we needed it, Louis had the kids off the train and moving fast enough to keep up with me like a perfect commander ordering his troops.

The safe house was sixteen minutes of maneuvering dizzying streets in the dark and a brief moment of terror when the door was stuck and when it creaked angrily as I forced it open. I ordered the children to secure the house and made my own check around the outside perimeter before pulling the thick curtains closed and finally letting the children turn on the lights.

It was then that the children got a look at me. One little girl gasped and shrank away in fear while a couple of boys, including Louis, wanted to get a better look. I let them get closer for a few silent moments, and then sat them down with the others. Twelve bright eyes watched me as I paced for a moment.

"Going from oldest to youngest or however you've got yourselves organized, tell me your names or codenames, whichever you choose to go by, your age, your power and how long you've been with Esset. After that, I want to know why each of you want to join the revolt. If you don't want to join the revolt, you'll have to wait out the few days we have here and then we'll set you out on your own."

A small girl on the far side of the room raised her hand and I nodded for her to speak.

"What if there's nothing for us out there?"

"That's up to you."

She nodded and put her hand back in her lap.

"Begin."

Louis stood up, shoulders back, chin proud. "My name is Louis, I'm twelve and my power is Pyrokinesis. I was with Esset my whole life. I want to join the revolt because my parents were in Esset and died trying to get me out. I want to do this for them."

I nodded, pleased, but didn't show it. A small, black-haired girl quietly got to her feet and stared at me with huge, black eyes that looked as if they could see right through me. It was hair-raising, to say the least. Her voice was quiet, but powerful.

"My name is Caroline. I am ten and I am an Empath. I was with Esset for a year and a half. I would like to join the revolt for revenge."

The next child stood, a sandy-haired boy that held the hand of a similar-looking girl. Twins, I realized as the girl rose too. Their blue eyes blinked up at me with hope. I hadn't seen such hope in years.

"My name is John and her name is Josephine," the boy said, his Austrian accent thick on his tongue, "We are nine-and-a-half years old, we've been with Esset three months, and our power is teleportation. It only works when we're together. We don't want to join the revolt, but we're happy you've helped us out."

I nodded and motioned for them to sit down.

The little girl who had gasped was another blonde child with green eyes. She stood up and slowly nodded to me. I guessed that she was American when she spoke. She shared the accent with that dark little girl, Caroline.

"My name is Emily and I'm ten, too. I can speak with animals and I've been with Esset for a year. I want to join the revolt for revenge. They killed my mother…"

The little girl Emily took hold of Caroline's hand and they sat down together, watching me. They were friends, I could see, good friends from within Esset, the kind of friends who had depended on one another for protection and companionship, a bit like Nox and me when we had been in training. I smiled softly at the two of them and looked at the last child, the smallest boy who was nestled against Louis's side and sucking his thumb as he studied me.

"He doesn't have a real name, but we think he's six," Louis said, "He doesn't talk and he came to the United States faculty a year or two ago. We don't know if he was in Esset before or where he's from, but he's a psychic. We don't know how well he can fight, but we know he's been trained enough to control his power. We can take care of him for you and keep him out of trouble, but he can't go out there. They'll take him to an orphanage. It'll be bad…"

Louis's eyes were pleading with me and ordering me at the same time. Don't leave this child alone. Don't take the boy away from those who knew him and took care of him. I didn't know how useful or detrimental this mystery boy could be, but I would try it out. There were few other options and I knew an orphanage wouldn't be the environment for him to grow and flourish.

I looked at the boy as he looked at me, his blue eyes brighter than the sky in midday and his face ruddy-brown like rich earth. His tousled black hair was a little matted and for a moment I thought I was looking at an extremely tanned version of little Nagi. I knew I couldn't leave him then, as I couldn't abandon Nagi. I nodded the affirmative and Louis hugged the boy against him, told him that he could stay with them.

I knelt in front of the sofa where the little boy was and tried to smile as nicely as I could.

"We need to call you something. Do you mind if we give you a name?" I asked gently.

The boy nodded.

"Let's call him poochie!" Josephine called out, but the other children quickly said 'no'.

"How about Tootles?" Caroline whispered. I looked at her, but she just smiled, "You were thinking of it, weren't you? Peter Pan? My mother used to read it to me before I went to bed. You think we're lost boys?"

I blinked and nodded dumbly, then laughed. I'd forgotten that some Empaths were able to read surface thoughts. She had briefly caught me off guard. Emily smiled next to her and nodded.

"I like it," Emily said and Caroline followed with a quiet, "Me too."

"Me too," Louis called and the twins gave a meek "Yes."

I turned to the boy, who was watching us with a kind of amused expression. His eyes were old, steady, almost wise for someone so young…it was a little creepy.

"How about it? Tootles?"

He nodded quietly, pleased enough to smile. It was a brief flash of teeth and a sparkle in his deep eyes, but it was there.

"Doesn't he need some marbles?" Emily asked. The children laughed.

Louis turned to me, mouth curved in a cupid's bow question.

"You haven't told us about yourself, sir," he murmured. For a moment, I almost told them that I wasn't important, but I knew I was. For a brief time, I was their leader, their caretaker, and how would I have felt if I were place under Crawford's care and direction without even knowing his name. I nodded and sat down in a chair, leaning forward so my arms rested against my knees.

"My name, as you may call me, is Farfarello, codename Berserker. I am twenty-three years old or thereabouts and I do not feel pain. I have been with Esset for eight years and I want to destroy Esset for ruining the lives of so many innocent people." A lofty idea, my mind silently added, and Caroline frowned at me. I smiled.

"As it is, I am to take care of you children until I received orders from my leader, Oracle, so until that time you'll need to follow some rules. One, please keep as quiet as possible. I have no idea how safe we are here, but it was best if no one knew of our presence, so no unnecessary noise. Two, if I ask for your attention or your help in anything, I expect immediate compliance, meaning, if I call you, drop everything and be ready to do as I say without question. Three, lights out at ten, no questions. You don't need to go to sleep, but you better be fond of the dark if you don't. Any questions?"

The children shook their heads.

"Great. So who's hungry?"

They all raised their hands, eager little faces shining at the mention of food. I supposed they hadn't been fed in days. I got to my feet and led them to the kitchen and started searching cabinets for anything edible. I started bringing down cans of vegetables and tomato paste. One of the children picked up a can of carrots and pulled a face, but didn't complain. Even so, I knew it was going to be difficult to make him eat any.

"Ever heard of stone soup?" I asked pleasantly. The children looked up and Emily raised her hand.

"My brother read a book about it once, about when a poor man asked a woman for soup and told her a rock would make it taste better, right?"

"That's the one."

Louis laughed, "A rock? That's stupid. Rocks don't taste good. They taste like dirt."

"No! This was a special rock, a magic rock."

"Magic?" Caroline asked, perking up with a bright smile.

I held back a snort. "I don't know if there are any rocks around this house, but maybe some other special things are lying around that could make all this," I motioned to the cans on the counter, "taste good? Why don't you all go look?"

The children didn't stay long enough to even nod. They were off running, leaving me alone to open cans and dump them and enough salt to cure a whole pig into a huge pot to stew. A few minutes later, the children came back to me with dusty little trinkets and hopeful smiles. I picked something indestructible and not poisonous from each child and let them dump it in the pot.

A dusty to car for Louis and a false-jeweled bobby pin for Caroline, a large black bead for John and a little polished stone shaped like a bird for Josepine. Emily popped a little book-shaped charm into the pot and helped Tootles drop a newly-found marble in after it. Once they were done, I put down the pot and turned the flames down for the stew to simmer for a while.

"All right. I'll call you when it's ready. You can entertain yourselves until then?"

They nodded and I shooed them out of the kitchen.

* * *

"Why the hell would Crawford leave a bunch of kids in your hands?" Tink growled from where she stood on the counter as I stirred the contents of the stewing pot of trinket-soup. The tea kettle I had just set on was whistling and I had to scramble to get it off before it made any more noise. In a matter of moments I had dropped a couple of bags I had found and the scent of sweet tea filled the room and mixed with the scent of the stew. It was nice, kind of homey, and because of that I was feeling calm, even in the presence of my greatest tormentor.

"Perhaps because I'm fairly good with kids? I played a big part in raising Nagi and he turned out better than expected. I suppose Crawford's depending on me to keep them safe, and compared to the others, I would have to say I am the most qualified for that job."

"He's depending on you not to loose your head," Tink pointed out and I sighed, staring into the tea I poured into a dirty mug I had found.

"Look, Tink, can't you just be civil, just once? I really don't need any more trouble right now."

"Hey, Jei, there's no reason for me not to be civil. I was angry because you were drugging me to death, but since you're pretty much off them, I don't see why I can't set vengeance aside for a bit."

"How reasonable of you…" I muttered and she giggled.

"Why, of course, my dear little Peter. We've got to work together for these lost boys."

"A truce, eh?" I said thoughtfully. Tink giggled again.

* * *

Supper was a quiet affair, the seven of us sitting in various perches around the kitchen, on counters, on the floor, in front of the refrigerator. There was no table or chairs, just the scuff marks of where they might once have been. It didn't matter to us, though; we were hungry enough not to care about the lack of seating and the fact we had to eat with our fingers out of coffee mugs and chipped bowls.

Everyone wanted seconds, and I happily spooned out what they asked for, even though we were supposed to live off the pot for the next day or so. I could always make more, it didn't matter. I convinced the children to help clean up after supper and packed the pot away in the fridge to keep. After supper, we sat around in a circle on the living room floor telling stories, usually fairy tales with princesses and dragons. The children got up and play-acted the parts of characters, quietly roaring and flouncing around the room with soft laughter. Louis and John actually pulled off a decent sword fight with a couple of yard sticks.

I sent them off to bed, letting them hole up wherever they felt the most comfortable, before switching off the lights and searching for my own little niche in which to sleep. I settled down on a pull-out sofa bed with a holey blanket and my arm for a pillow. I had shut my eyes for only a couple of minutes when I felt the bed shift and nearly pulled my knife. I slitted my eye open and glowered out at the small, dark figure looking down at me.

"What?" I growled, letting my shoulders relax.

"I'm scared…of the dark," was the soft reply. I recognized the voice as Caroline's. I briefly wondered where Emily was. As far as I had seen, they were inseparable. I sighed.

"What do you want me to do about it? You know the rules."

"I know. Can I sleep with you?"

"Think I can scare off the beasties, do you?" I asked with a smile.

"You did before..." I quirked an eyebrow at her, but she could not see it.

"Fine. You bring a blanket?"

"Yes."

"Get in."

Two minutes later, Emily was crawling onto the bed and curling next to Caroline. Then the twins set up their own nest of blankets on my other side. Eventually Louis, dragged along behind Tootles, slipped under the foot of my blanket and promptly fell back to sleep. All of us, piled onto the small pull-out sofa, a sleeping pack of children…

It felt a bit surreal. It felt really warm.

And even I had to admit, it did feel slightly safer than being alone.

* * *

One very awful thing about children was the fact that they got up at dawn. DAWN! I never got up at dawn. Heavens, if it had been up to me, I would've slept the whole two days! But no, six o'clock in the morning, right in my ear, were a half dozen little voices telling me that they were hungry.

"Go eat some fruit," I grumbled and tried to go back to sleep, but they were insistent. They drove me from my warm little bed and into the kitchen to distribute anything resembling food before I even realized I was awake. Once everyone was quiet and eating, I started to make some coffee, muttering quietly to myself.

"Nagi never got me up this bloody early…Bloody little goat-scraps…"

"Nagi was old enough to know how to keep him mouth shut. How can you be so cruel?" Tink admonished.

"Oh, shut up," I groaned. The children looked up at me, confused. Caroline just stared, her eyes frightened. I turned on Tink, "Great, now they think I'm crazy!"

"Aren't you?" she asked as she picked dirt from under his fingernails.

"This is your fault!"

"Oh, sure, blame the imaginary friend…"

"Exactly!"

"She sees me, though, the creepy one…"

"She isn't creepy!"

"You just keep saying that, sweetie…"

"Fucking bitch!"

"Now, now…language! Remember the children!"

I looked over at the children, who were thankfully in the other room. Excepting Caroline…I growled a curse at myself and dumped my coffee through a strainer.

"Great, just great…"

"Uh…Farfarello…sir?"

I turned around, my expression black. "What?"

Caroline's face was whiter than I had ever seen it and one slender little hand reached up to touch the sleeve of my sweater. Her, eyes, though, were soft, wide, understanding…

"Are you sick?" she asked, her voice missing any malice I expected from anyone who caught me talking to myself, even Schuldig. I shook my head, then nodded, then sigh and set my coffee cup down on the counter and motioned to my head.

"Up here, since I was your age. I see things others don't, things that aren't real to anyone but me," I explained softly, just between her and me. The other children couldn't hear us and I was glad. I didn't think they'd understand, not really. They couldn't understand the way this little empathy might've. She'd seen it, after all.

"Are they hurtful to you?" she whispered gently. Her eyes were full of emotion, not pity…sympathy, perhaps?

"I don't let them, not anymore. Now, though, one of them is being rather nice in light of the situation. I don't have anything to keep them quiet, you see, no medications."

She nodded but didn't look sure.

"You heard her?" I asked.

"She sounds nasty."

"She can be, but she also has a lot of sense I know I don't. Anyway, let's keep this a secret from the others until later, okay? I don't want to frighten them any more than they already are."

She nodded more vigorously now. "I came to see if you wanted any help."

I brightened, "Of course! Do you think you could help me track down something breakfast-like in the cabinets?"

"Yeah!"

* * *

Day three. Rather, night three. Three days and I haven't heard from Crawford, or anyone else in Swartz, for that matter. I was sick with worry, even Tink was strangely silent, but I kept it from the children, though I suspected Caroline had been keeping an eye on every one of my moods. Understandably, of course. I didn't want to think that these youngsters would blindly follow me if I was a danger to them and I was glad they'd proven me right.

I was lying on my sofa-bed with the little mongrels curled without symmetry around me for warmth when it came, a tentative, breathless voice in the back of my head. Something tugged at my team link and I tensed in a brief moment of terror before I recognized Crawford's mental signature, as familiar as the flavor of milk on my tongue.

/Berserker?/

/Here, Oracle,/ I replied, containing my excitement. Even so, my heart was already beating faster with joy.

/Report/

/Six young talents, all well. Myself, better than usual. Our position has not been located by enemy forces. Waiting for orders, sir/

I could sense Crawford nodding in approval.

/Get them up and ready to go in ten minutes. You will have fifteen minutes after that to get to a subway stop. You'll see Nagi there. Do not approach him, but follow him. He will take you to the next safe house. We'll be meeting up there/

/Aye/

/Begin timing now. Good luck, and stay unseen/

The link was silenced and I leapt out of bed, ripping blankets off complaining children as I went. I landed easily on my feet, a mass of energy now, already going for my shirt and shoes as I shouted (quietly) for the others to get up, that we were leaving immediately and to take whatever they needed with them, but only what they could carry. Like the little professionals they were, they obeyed quickly and the house was alive with rushing children trying to pack their few precious things (including their trinkets from the soup) into coat pockets and makeshift bags.

By the time I had my coat and hat on, they were lined up in front of the door, waiting for me to shoulder my bag and slip on a pair of sunglasses that would cover my missing eye (the eye patch was too noticeable, even in the dark). I looked them over, then nodded and opened the door and we slipped off into the night.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 6_

_Please Review_

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**StarTrekObsessed**: (laughs) And I do so like cheese…AS a matter of fact, I was talking about cheese in English class today…Ah, anyway. Sorry, I was just being nitpicky. Thank you anyway, and I'm really glad you're enjoying this story.

BTW, can I get the titles of those stories you like so much? Or better yet, the links? (sneaky look)

**Rori Barton**At first, I didn't like her at all, but now I kinda do too…funny how that works, eh? But not to worry, she's not as nice as she seems…later, though, later…

'At home'? Does he? (reviews chapters) Hmm…you're right…must've been some author's reflection onto the character…I personally don't see Crawford comfortable anywhere, too big a stick up his ass, especially now that he's kind of toppled an entire corporation and is about to seal the rest in some melodramatically-suggested 'doom'.

One day I'd like to write more about Washington…It's a pretty city…

**xKokurox**Oh good. He makes good entertainment when he's mad.

Okay, being nitpicky again (ugh, Poco, can't you just shut up?), but I work in a library as an aide, so I asked a librarian today is the fines went into her paycheck or to the library. She said it was the latter, as I'd half-expected. Anyway, if the library nazi's are giving you dirty looks, ignore them and do what you came to do. They can't really do anything to you, not really.

And no, I'm not paranoid…(spooky finger-motions)


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes: **Went to the second official Reading for the LitMag. It was so good…(cries)

* * *

**7**

* * *

I've never been terribly afraid of the dark, but with six nervous children, feelings changed. The dark alleys we passed, alleys that had once sheltered me in my various escapes from hospitals, were now potential dangers to my little charges. I clung to the backs of their shirts, shoving them before me as swiftly as possible and as far from the yawning places between buildings as the sidewalk would allow. Besides the sounds of our steps and the quieted screeching of traffic and the hum of the subway beneath our feet, it was silent. The yellow-orange streetlights were like the cat's eyes of the night, watching us as we huddled under their safe watch.

I hadn't had any medications for almost a week. I was seeing things right and left, borne from my protective fear. For once, I was thankful to my skewed perception; it made me twice as alert as I'd ever been, exactly when I needed it.

We reached the train station without incident and quickly descended, as if we were climbing down a monster's tongue into its black mouth. I looked up, fearing to see great, jagged teeth above me, ready to snap down and swallow us. At the bottom, I saw no guard and jumped the turnstile-like portal, convincing the children to climb under after me.

Down a stalled escalator, onto the bare platform, there was no one in sight. We stood, waiting, feeling stupid, gripping one another's hands to jerk back the younger ones if they ventured too close to the edge. The train screamed off in the distance, deep within the tunnel, its bright lighted eyes shining in our faces as we turned to look. Half a minutes later, it blew past us in a gust of wind and stopped. The doors slid open, a woman's voice directing us away from the closing door from the ceiling…

I directed the children to a group of seats and they solemnly watched me as I stood, guarding, my hand clenched to the pole as the train jerked to life and flung itself back into the tubes. Minutes later, we jerked to another stop and one thin passenger boarded our car and sat down. He didn't look at us, but as he leaned down to retie his shoe, I recognized the flicker of blue eyes that looked at me. I didn't smile, didn't flinch, just looked away as naturally as breathing. Three stops later, Prodigy stood and left the car. I quickly hustled the children after him and followed at a distance.

Down the platform, up an escalator, over the turnstile, up more escalators, onto the street now dimly lit by yellow lights; it looked the same as any other part of the city. I followed Prodigy's figure and the children followed me, down street after street until I had lost my direction. Then, he turned off the sidewalk and into an alley. I paused, briefly, knowing that once we entered the darkness we'd be safe, but still unsure. I looked down at Tootles, whose hand I had been holding. I didn't want to take these children away to that unknown place, like a fey stealing babies in exchange for changelings. It seemed wrong somehow.

Caroline touched my hand and smiled at me.

"_We_ are the changelings. We need to go back to our dark. Take us?" she whispered.

I turned and led them down the alley. I stopped by a blank door in the wall and raised my hand to knock.

No…I stopped. Don't knock.

I opened the team link and felt around for Crawford's mind, my fingertips on the face of the door.

/Oracle…/

An eyeslit in the door clanged open and Crawford's bespectacled eyes glowered out at me for a half second. The door was unlocked and opened and I quickly shoved the children inside, one quick glance to make sure I wasn't followed, and I ducked in after them.

* * *

"Were you followed?"

"Would I have come if I was? Please, I have more sense than that."

"I just saw you pause, curious, is all…"

"Brad, I really need to sit down, have some tea, make sure the children are okay…Can we save in interrogations for later?"

He just grunted and led me deeper inside.

* * *

I was sitting on the counter of the safe house's kitchen, my six little children parked around a decaying table, a cup of water in each hand. I was still waiting for the tea to brew, watching Nagi as he silently pulled down two coffee mugs and a packet of tea bags. He looked tired, his eyes droopy with it.

"How long have you been here?" I asked him. Nagi shrugged.

"Few hours, not long. Schuldig should be on his way sometime soon, too."

"And Crawford?"

"No idea. I didn't think to ask," he said quietly, "So you got to run the kindergarten?"

"I suppose it seemed the most reasonable thing for me to do. Compared to Schu and Crawford, I'm good enough with kids. That tea ready yet?"

"No, it isn't. And no envy here. I don't like kids."

I laughed, "You still _are_ a kid, Nagi."

Nagi shot a deadly look at me and flipped the stove off. He jammed the tea bags into the kettle and left it to me, muttering 'whatever' as he left the room. Teenagers…

Once I had drunk my fill, I wandered around the warehouse-like building, looking for our leader. I met several new people, refugees from the destroyed faculty, I supposed, but I didn't stick around to chat and find out for sure. Brad was in a boxy office, flipping through maps on a table and growling to himself as he wrote on them. I leaned against the doorframe and knocked to tell him I was here.

"Berserker ready to report, sir," I mumbled pleasantly. Brad looked up, assessed me for a moment and nodded me over to a battered desk chair.

"I wasn't expecting you for a little while longer," Crawford said as he went back to shuffling the maps. I shrugged.

"To expect the unexpected…but you've always had a little trouble predicting me, eh?"

"Do not remind me of my weaknesses, Farfarello, I know them well enough. If you're going to report, then report, otherwise get out. I have work to do."

I sighed, but nodded anyway. There was no point in pissing Crawford off, not when he was working…never knew if he was the kind of angry that would involve waving around loaded firearms…

"Team B of the Mission: impossible unit intact and unseen. Six children, ranging ages from six to twelve. Talents: Pyrokinesis, Empathy, Animal Communication, Teleportation, and a Psychic. One team leader, Berserker unseen and unharmed, though he would very much like a sedative and some hours to sleep."

"Tinker Bell been visiting you again?" Crawford asked, his voice bemused though his face was solemn. I smiled and nodded.

"Being rather civil, too…"

Crawford shook his head and went back to watching his map for a moment, leaving me standing there, waiting stupidly. That might've been a dismissal, his was of disposing me from his thoughts, that little shake…I waited for a moment, then started to turn to leave.

"Schuldig will be arriving in an hour or so. Once he is safe and reports in, you can get some rest. In the mean time, I need you to watch the door while Nagi keeps the others in order and I work on our next move. Can you do that?"

It sounded as if he thought it was too much to ask of me, working an hour more after three days of solid waking fear. Yes, fear. The kind of fear that rots the insides of your bones until your marrow runs thin like broth on an empty stomach. The kind of fear one never sleeps through, destined to jerk himself awake at every sound, however minute. I shrugged.

What was an hour? An hour, a day, a week, it was all the same. It all took forever to drag itself by. It was the anticipation of something terrible, something that came so naturally to me now…

"Lemme get some food, some coffee, change of clothes maybe, and I'll be right there," I said quietly and made some kind of flourishing salute that would've been better suited for Schuldig than me. Crawford nodded, pleased, and turned away as I left.

* * *

I was on my third cup of coffee, five little plastic packets for oatmeal bars littering the floor around my feet. I thought about tearing into another one, my stomach somehow insatiable, but quickly decided not to. Hunger may put one to sleep, but so did being overfull…

I drank more coffee, black and thick as tar and twice as disgusting. My watch read three-o-six in the morning, but it felt much later. Everyone was in bed but Crawford, Nagi and me. It had been two hours since Schuldig should've arrived. We were panicked, in our own silent ways. I could tell by the flickering glances Crawford kept shooting at the door and the shade of white Nagi's face had been for the past hour. Something was very seriously wrong.

And then I felt it, the flare in our team link. We glanced at one another to see if any of us had called, then realized it was Schuldig. I could feel a slash of pain across my stomach, a strange, unearthly sensation, totally not my own. Oh yes, something was wrong…

/Far…/ Schuldig's voice, usually so brash and so proud, now quiet, tired, even weak…It wasn't possible, not mentally…My fingers fumbled the locks on the door and I ripped it open without looking to see who it was through the eyeslit. No reason to…Schuldig wouldn't have showed up if he'd been followed.

Our redhead stood there on the stoop, wavering like an apparition.

/Mastermind reporting in…/ he mumbled softly and collapsed into my arms.

"Shit! Crawford! Nagi! He's been wounded! Help me get him inside and find a first aide kit!" I shouted, rousing some of the sleepers in our warehouse. Crawford and Nagi were at my side in a moment, our leader shutting and barring the door and Nagi watching pensively as I lifted Schuldig's thin frame, limp as a rag doll, and carried him to a back room we'd made out of curtains.

"Nagi! First Aide! Now!" I nearly screamed, my voice cracking as I searched Schuldig's clothing for wounds. There, his stomach was bleeding through his thin cotton shirt and I tried to open the buttons, failing because my hands were shaking. I flipped open my jackknife and tore the shirt apart, peeling it as carefully as I could from where it had stuck to his bloody skin. He groaned a in his sleep, but didn't come to even when Nagi finally showed up, little white box in his hands, his face urging me to back off and let him work now. I refused to leave, remaining by Schuldig's side and gripping his clammy hand as I watched. Nagi eased the bullet out with his telekinesis, and sewed up the wound, disinfecting everything as well as any surgeon.

Schuldig still hadn't woken and we were getting worried. Crawford had arrived a moment and a half after Nagi had finished sewing our redhead up, a worried look masked by his glasses, silent and opaque. I was tense, face grim, my hands clasped around those pale, thin fingers, pinker than my own, smeared with flaking blood.

/Schuldig.../ I found myself whispering, chanting, like a prayer, his name, to bring him back/Schuldig…Schuldig…/

I found myself praying before I'd even realized it, silently begging God not to take him away from me, making useless promises from the bottom of my sullied soul. I didn't believe in God, I thought I didn't, but here I was, pleading to something that had only existed in my head from my boyhood lessons in the church.

Really, I couldn't remember the whole Hail Mary anymore…

/Far? What the fuck are you doing?/ Schuldig's voice echoed in my head, dreamy, sleepy, perhaps not even real. I glanced down at his face, to make sure I wasn't making his up out of hope, but no, his eyes were open, blurred with pain and staring at me in horror.

/Stop praying, man, you make my head hurt/

Somewhere in the back of my mind something was screaming out a demonized bastardization of Handel's Messiah, and while half of me thanked God and swore to be better (as general a promise as one could manage I suppose), I leaned forward and clutched the man to me, my eye squeezed shut with emotion.

/Please tell me you're not turning religious on me, Far, or I'll die right now just to prove how wrong it is…/

"Shut up, Schuldig," I hissed and let Nagi move in, offer Schuldig a syringe full of morphine.

As Schuldig was drifting back off to sleep and Crawford told him to rest and recover, Schuldig smiled at me, faintly, tiredly. His hand found mine in my lap.

/Stay? Just until I'm asleep?/

It surprised me that he even asked, but I knew it wasn't out of fear or sentimentality…

/Schu…/

/I'm expecting a 'yes', Far/

The briefest of pauses…

/Yes/

* * *

Once Schuldig was asleep, I tucked his arm under his blanket and slipped away, looking for the children, or Crawford, or Nagi…just someone. I was still shaken, still feeling…sick. 

Everything was different, since a month ago, and since the very beginning…I remember when Schuldig would've spat in my face had I offered to stay the night with him, almost did when I thought about staying the night because my legs wouldn't work. I was forced to drag myself into my own room, Schuldig's smirk chasing me. He had tormented me so in my younger years.

Crawford, once the cold leader, omnipresent and distant, was one of my closest friends, someone I trusted, someone I depended on, like a surrogate elder brother who took care of us all. He always had, I just never saw it before the Tower, never saw it until he was scrambling from country to country, tearing at high walls with his teeth and broken, bleeding fingernails. Even through the sheer humanity, he was still a demi-god to me. Secretly, I'd always worshipped him.

I had once feared Nagi, feared that he might've been a spy from Essetm come to tear our happy little pack apart, then suddenly found myself irrevocably attached to him. Brother to brother, fighting against one another and alongside one another. I protected him, he protected me, equals. He hadn't changed much, only grown a little more outspoken, a lot taller. For a brief moment I wondered if he was a tad Caucasian, but I didn't dare ask him. I didn't think he'd appreciate it.

I found the boy, not so much a boy anymore, standing over the stove and boiling a kettle of water, looking worn. I stepped inside and leaned on the counter next to him.

"Thought you were staying with Schuldig," Nagi whispered. I shook my head and busied myself getting mugs down. Irish or Japanese, tea comforted us in a way no one else could understand. I knew our boy had been frightened, seen it in his eyes when Schuldig fainted at the door, and even now his hands were quivering, so slightly.

"Only till he was asleep. I have to check on the kids anyway, make sure they're breathing or something."

"Paternal instinct. Somehow I never thought that of you…"

I snorted, "Yeah, right…Paternal…Nagi, you're so full of shit." The boy turned to me, serious.

"No, really, Farfarello. You're the only one who's really liked kids in any way, shape, form and circumstance. You stuck up for me when Schu and Crawford were suspicious, right after I got back from training, and ever since you've had a nasty habit of turning down targets younger than seventeen…"

"Albeit, we didn't have but two of them…" I added, not enjoying the direction of this conversation. I was never fond of my mannerism being a topic.

"Even so," he said, as if that was enough to prove his point, "And I didn't say it was a bad thing, just unusual among people like us. Those are some lucky kids. You'd probably protect them like a mother bear…" He made as if to reach over and lift my eye patch, but stopped himself when his fingers were a few inches from my face, "…Like you once protected me…"

We stood like the for a few minutes, still, silent, waiting for something to break the tension. The kettle whistled and we nearly jumped out of our skins, turning away quickly, without shame, just knowing.

He loved me, I loved him, and through that, we were family. We'd grown up together, suffered hardships no man should've ever gone through, and survived and becomes stronger. We'd dragged one another through hardships and defended one another against adversaries of all kinds. We were more than brothers in arms, we were brothers.

Nagi turned off the stove and poured out the tea, one for him and one for me. I was leaning against the counter again, sagging with exhaustion. I hadn't slept in some thirty-odd hours and all this emotional torment was taking its toll. I'd gone longer without sleep, sure, but I felt somehow older now, and older men never could keep up with what they'd once done. All that exhaustion had worn my nerves thin, all that fear and relief and fear again was enough to set me off on any other day.

"Farferello?"

I looked up, Nagi's face was worried.

"You're crying…what's wrong?" He sounded frightened. I lifted the mug to my lips, hiding a soft smile.

"Crazy people cry over anything…who the fuck knows?" I answered quickly, looking away so he would understand that it was a total bullshit answer and that he wouldn't get anything better. He sighed, but dropped it.

"I'm going to bed," he said and headed for the door.

"G'night, Nagi."

"Good night, Far."

He left me alone to mull over my thoughts, but I felt I'd done enough of that myself. I shook myself awake and moved toward the little corner where the children had camped out, the six of them lying in a huge nest of blankets and broken mattresses. I made sure each was breathing, standing long enough to count breaths of each child, watching them for little sleepy twitches and mutterings. I sat down in a little space beside them and stretched out on the mattress, little ones crowing around me for my warmth. I hugged them close, thinking Nagi was probably right.

I'd fight to the death for these kids, like I would for Crawford and for Nagi and for Schuldig…

* * *

_Fin Chapter 7_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **In real life, you can't ever jump the turnstiles. The D.C. security officers are total assholes…Also, then you go down those tunnels, it really does feel like you're getting swallowed.

In other news, I adore tea. Tea is wonderful…

* * *

**To My Readers:**

**StarTrekObsessed**Man, I usually go to bed at ten and fall asleep an hour later! I feel like such an old crone…

Either way, time matters not, for it is only relative.

And yes, I got that impression as well.

**xKokurox** Not a Peter Pan fan? (horrified scream)

I rather like Tink myself. I like her senseless maliciousness…

And I mentioned before, being paranoid, right?


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Notes: **Some of this is memory, some of this bullshit, some of this insanity.

Finals week is coming up. Dear God, save me…

* * *

**8**

* * *

Plaid background, jungle themed trees in the foreground, the stench of undergrowth rot and the sweet grass and pine of a Scottish forest…

I was thirteen again, hiding in the bushes. I didn't know why I was in Scotland, I didn't even remember the trip there, but that was little surprise. I was always drugged when they moved me, for their protection. They had the idea I was a killer, but I wasn't. I was simply an avenger, a kind of wingless angel sent to rid the world of its evil souls, hiding in the folds of the Cloth.

I was biting my fingernails and spitting out the shards quietly, my eyes closed, but my ears open and nostrils flared to the sounds and smells of the forest. The crack of a twig under a careless hunter's foot, a whiff of man's sweat and detergent. I moved along a tunnel in the brush where animals passed through, crawling on hands and knees to a foxhole I had recently occupied. It was a large hole, probably from a pair of foxes and their pups, under the base of an aged, protective tree.

From inside of the hole I pulled my knife, a misbalanced kitchen knife stolen from a neighborhood some twenty miles south of here, not far from the hospital. It was an award weapon, but better than none, and Tink had assured me that with it in my possession, few pirates would dare come near. It was good for me; I had no interest in meeting pirates. I'd had enough of them.

Knife in hand, I slowly got to my feet, flitted from behind one truck to another like the fey I was, letting the world around me tell me everything I needed to know about these hunters. I basked in the energy of the trees, wild with it, leaves and sticks and the bones of birds in my hair, dirt on my face and cake under my ragged fingernails, feet bare on the hard earth, so cold they were blue. I'd lost my shoes somewhere, my coat as well, but it didn't matter here. I was safe in these forests, in this Never Neverland. The trees would keep me safe.

"Peter," Tink whispered, "They're to your left."

"Right…"

Stealthily moving, I could see them now, in their camouflage, a dog clamoring on the end of a leash in my direction, whining. It saw me and barked, once, twice, and I froze in terror.

Dogs…Oh God, not dogs…

"Run, Peter! Quickly!" Tink screamed, pulling at my shirt collar with a flurry of wing beats. I couldn't move, my throat clogged with fear.

"Go get him! Go!" the master ordered and let the dog loose, the raging, foaming mouth rushing toward me. I found my strength then, and broke for the nearest low branch. My fingers caught it and I struggled half my body over it when the dog was at my feet, teeth hard and sharp around my ankle, tearing at my skin. I couldn't feel the pain, but I could feel the fear that was worse than pain, even as it stole away my strength and let the dog pull me out of the tree and to the forest floor, crying, trying to crawl away even as it bit and tried to pin me.

I reached for the kitchen knife I had stuck in my belt and tried to stab the dog, but it was smart, and grabbed my wrist in its jaws and shook the knife out of my grasp, hard enough to snap bones. I could feel their raw sides sliding against one another, like the noise than makes one's teeth grind and want to scream.

"Good boy, get him…"

They were here…the pirates…

"Tinker Bell! Stop them!" I pleaded, but she was gone, abandoned me for safety…The little bitch… "Stop!"

Someone pulled the dog off while hands came at me, words like 'it's okay now' and 'you're safe now' and 'lie still, boy' in my ears, even as they bound me, broken wrist and all in a straight jacket and leg bindings, lifted me to carry me to wherever they would. Tears were still streaming down my face, I was still crying, cursing at the forest for letting them get me.

I was face to face with the dog, a man leering at me in the background, his shirt of some dark green plaid and his teeth yellow around his cigarette as he laughed at me. He made as if to let the dog go, the tried to stop it, but his hand slipped. The dog was loose and on my face in a second, teeth sliding across my face with a snarl.

I screamed.

* * *

I woke myself up by screaming, found myself sitting up in the dark, sweating, shivering, my hands over my face as if to protect it. A moment later I remembered that I was safe now, that there was nothing there to hurt me, that I was strong now and didn't need a knife to kill anymore… 

My fingers found the scars on my face, sliding from temple to cheek, from lip to chin.

I'd always hated dogs…

I shuttered and got out of bed, taking the time only to check and see if I'd woken the children, whom I hadn't, and to get my eye patch that had slipped off in the night. I stumbled to the bathroom and flipped on the harsh light, the bulb bare on the wall, casting shadows across my already ragged face. I stared at myself in the mirror, hard, pondering.

What kind of man wore a face like this? Certainly not a man of any respectable means…Really, it was more a face to scare, not to look reasonable. I wasn't reasonable. I was insane and could be nothing more than that.

What would I do when I was finally free of Esset? I was only cut out for one thing, after all, only trained for that one thing. I was killer to the very core, since my youth, a special breed of them, but one all the same. It seemed simple, knowing that, but what kind of world would take me in?

I couldn't retire. I had enough money to hide away forever, surely, to buy my own goddamn island to die on, but I'd be crazy from boredom and not much else. I could go back to Japan if they killed off a few million people…I couldn't stand cities…

I sighed…this was not the time to consider these things. There was a job to focus on and maybe medications in the morning.

/Actually, it's the perfect time to go over these options, Far. What other chance will you have to dream like this?/ Schuldig's voice echoed in my head.

_Yes, but…There isn't much out there for me…_

/You could go back to Ireland, fix the issues they have over there?/

_I don't think so. I'm not a politician. Much as I love the country, there's a whole other life there that ended about a decade ago._

/Guess so…/ A pause. /Come sit with me, we'll share a cigarette./

I shrugged and turned the light off as I left for Schuldig's room. I had nothing better to do, seeing as I couldn't sleep. I refused to dream that again…

I closed Schuldig's door behind me as I entered, sat down on his bed and watched him as he lay there, spread over his pillows like the Queen of Sheba herself, a thin cigarette held gracefully between two slightly-stained fingers, nicotine yellow. Blue-gold cat eyes regarded me slowly from under a fall of tangled red bangs. It was one of his better sexy moments, even through the sheen of pain-sweat on his forehead and the paleness that bleached even his freckles.

He smiled at me, the curl of the corner of his lips as jagged as bent a straight pin, brittle and sharp, and offered me the cigarette he was holding. He looked lazy, sated, as if he'd just been very thoroughly fucked or expected to be soon. I took the cigarette without realizing it, took too big a puff and choked, broke the moment.

That's me, fumbling perfect moments…I'm such a fuckup…

"Feeling sorry for yourself? That's unlike you, Far. A new development from the hospital, perhaps?" he asked as he sat up, slowly, barely wincing as he reached out to hold my face, each hand cupping a cheek, his thumbs gentle across my scars. For some reason I'd forgotten how to breathe, forgotten that the cigarette was burning low, almost to my fingertips. I couldn't feel the heat. My eyes were on his, mesmerized like a bird would be under the gaze of a snake.

"What do you want to do, Farfie?" he asked, leaning forward to take the cigarette and stub it out in an ashtray on the bed, not looking away. I could feel his mind surging into mine, unearthing parts of me I'd buried on purpose as he searched, but for what?

Usually I wouldn't let him that deep into my head…

"Collect stamps?" I gurgled softly, confused. He laughed and shook his head, eyes smiling at me.

"No, no…"

"What do you want me to want to do? What have you already planned?" I asked, still breathless. His mouth was inches from mine, such painful inches. Thin, beautiful lips in such a flat, lovely line, curled at the ends like an animal of prey, a voo doo doll, a broken, rusted nail…

/Nice to see what you compare me to, Far…You really are kind of messed up, you know? Makes you interesting…/

I wanted to lean forward, but I couldn't force myself to. I was like a boy again, fearful. What could I break this time?

"You're still wounded," I struggled to gasp out. I couldn't move forward or back, or turn away from those eyes, like jewels…

"Your point being?"

I leaned forward and smashed my mouth against his, his eyes wide and surprised at me. I closed my eye, as tightly as I could, and I felt the connection he'd set up in my mind stretch and snap.

"Fuck! That hurt, Far!" Schuldig shouted, pulling away to press a hand to his forehead. I could see blood starting to run from his nose and quickly wadded some leftover gauze up to press underneath the stream. Schuldig was still cursing, but at least his mind was no deeper than it usually was in mine.

"What the hell was that?!" I screamed, pressing the gauze against his nose with more force than was necessary. I wanted to slam the flat of my palm against that nose, shove the bone straight into his brain. I wanted to kill him for scaring me like that.

"Shit, motherfucker…why the hell'd you cut me off?!"

"What was it?!"

His eyes weren't like jewels anymore, welling with pain and I instantly felt the anger slip away from me. I swallowed, hard, around something caught in my throat, and let him take the gauze and hole it up himself as I turned away, tried to save face.

Why the hell was I the villain here?

"I was trying to make a connection," Schuldig finally explained after a few minutes of dabbing at his nose, "Shit, that hurt…"

"We already have a team link," I replied and pointed to my temple to indicate that seemingly unbreakable mental bond that connected Swartz, though I knew it wasn't as impervious as we liked to think.

"No, no…something deeper. Just us. Something that couldn't be closed down."

"Sounds dangerous," I grumbled and picked at my toenails. I wondered how strange it would look to reach down and gnaw at them as I did with my fingernails…

"It isn't. It's not supposed to be painful."

"I mean if one of us were caught. To have a link that couldn't be closed down is like a dead ringer for the rest of the team, or at least a significant quarter of it…Didn't you think of that?"

"Yes, I did," Schuldig grumbled and lit a fresh cigarette. He took a long drag and passed it off to me. I inhaled gratefully.

"I decided I didn't give a damn."

I laughed.

"Am I to play Scarlett?" I asked.

Schuldig looked at me quizzically. I sighed out the leftover blue smoke and motioned vaguely.

"From the movie, 'Gone With The Wind'… 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn'…You know, that one?"

"Ah."

"Of course she was half-Irish and went by her middle name…"

"And lived through the American Civil War…" Schuldig added. I nodded and laughed.

"What's your point?" I asked, veering back to the topic at hand.

"That I didn't give a damn? About the consequences…"

"Well I do. I mean, you can't just come in a set up shop without permission, you bleeding sod! I very much _do_ give a damn!"

Schuldig stuck the cigarette between his lips and regarded me silently, thinking. I dreaded already the conclusions he'd come to.

"Wait," I said.

"What?"

"Wait until this is over. Wait until we're somewhere safe and no Esset is going to come after us…"

"Far, that could be years!"

"'Love is not an egg salad!'" I countered.

Schuldig laughed.

"You need to stop quoting chick-flicks to ever be taken seriously…"

"Ah, but they're still good quotes."

* * *

I'm twenty-three and a half years old today, right now, right here. I'm in the capital of one of the most powerful nations the world has ever seen, locked in a warehouse with three of four dozen potentially hazardous people, watching some poor schmuck in a business suit getting mugged. I'm not really enjoying, it feels more like a movie really, distant, unattached, but I know better.

At any moment, a siren will go off. They'll close down the area for some investigation. They'll search all the warehouses in the neighborhood and we'll have to leave before then.

Brad was already issuing orders, first time that morning, telling everyone before breakfast that they had to get ready to leave in an hour.

It's 6:37 in the morning and the three or four dozen former Esset employs are watching some poor dumb bastard getting mugged in the alley, every face grim, every mind empathetic, but distant. In three minutes, we would be leaving, each of us splitting up to either put together small pockets for the resistance (who would later ingrain themselves into every facet of the society) or to disappear (or in the children's cases, go to another safe home or an orphanage). We had our very few belongings packed; some had nothing at all, had already said our good byes and were now waiting for the order.

Schuldig was leaning on a crutch Nagi and I had dug out of a storage closet, his other arm holding onto his bag and his hair stuffed under a stocking cap. He hadn't shaved, hadn't washed, and dressed nearly entirely in surplus clothing. All of us were like that, like an emigration of homeless beggars. It was the best cover would could pull together in such a short time…

I had a bag under one arm and Louis's hand clenched in mine, as he was holding onto Tootles, who held onto Emily, who held onto Caroline, who held onto Josephine, who held onto her brother, John. I looked down my little line of ducklings with a question and they nodded. They were ready.

Crawford, looking like the king of the hobos, raised his hand and dropped it, a signal to go. The first six people left and Crawford held his hand up again, paused for a moment, and then dropped it. He kept on like this until the only people left were Swartz and the children. Brad slowly edged through the door, then Schu, Nagi, me and the kids followed as quietly as we could manage.

Brad opened up the team link to give orders even as I slip from my teammates.

/There is an orphanage three blocks away from here. Drop John and Josephine off there. A safe house is a mile in the other direction, so go to the subway station nearby and leave whoever wants to leave there. They can either take the train toward the Smithsonian three stops, or they can go back to the orphanage, but they cannot follow you. You must come back alone, understand?/

I gave a reluctant yes.

/After they have decided, go to Union Station. Get changed in a bathroom into the clothes you're carrying there, and we'll meet you. You should be there by seven forty-five if you don't delay and that will be enough time to dye your hair and cover those scars. Don't lock the door to the men's room, you'll be safe./

_Understood, Sir_.

/Good luck, Farfarello. We'll see you there./

The link shut off, and I was racing east toward a nasty complex of Washington where I expected to see an orphanage, trying to relay all my information to the children as I ducked away from morning commuters (on a weekend?). When we got to the orphanage, there was little to do about the twins leaving. They thanked me for my kindness and left. I took the last for to the nearby metro station, but it was harder to say good bye this time. I stood there, staring at them and holding their hands for several long, painful moments until Emily smiled, tugged me to my knees and kissed me on the cheek.

"Thank you. I'll always remember you and I hope we beat them!" she said and pulled away so Caroline could do the same.

"I'll make sure we stay out of trouble. Thank you, Farfarello, and thank Swartz…for everything you've done for us…"

I got to my feet and Louis held out his hand for me to shake. His grip was firm, strong already for so young a boy. There were tears in his eyes, though and his lip trembled very slightly.

"I'll protect them and I'll fight when I'm needed. Good luck, Swartz."

Tootles reached out to shake hands and smiled around his thumb when I did so. I ruffled his hair and laughed softly.

The train had arrived and I made sure they were on safely and knew where to go. I waved as the train left, trying not to feel as if I'd abandoned them. When the train was down the tube, I turned to find directions for Union Station.

* * *

If ever there was a gaudier sight than Union Station! High arches with sculptures of what I assumed to be Greek and Roman gods were everywhere, people amassed below like rats. They looked at me as I shrank away, their noses crinkled in disgust at my stench even as I made a beeline for the nearest restroom.

I was sorely tempted to lock the door when I got there, as no one was in the place and I didn't want them to show up unexpectedly, but I didn't. Instead, I locked myself in a stall and started getting changed, slathering on deodorant to make up for my lack of sponge bath (I really didn't want to do it in such a public place).

The door opened, feet walked in with even steps, and the door closed and locked behind them. I froze, one leg halfway into my trousers, my hair standing on end. Someone touched my mind and I nearly lashed out in my terror.

/Far. It's us./

Schuldig opened the door to my booth and laughed.

"Put your pants on, man, we've got work to do with you…" he said as he held up a box of hair dye, light brown that tumbled around a woman's face. I just looked at him and he smiled wider.

His hair…it was…black…and he had thick black eyeliner on, his face powdered white so that it flashed fantastically like a corpse's. His lips were black as well, his clothes torn in a fashionably sloppy way. There was a spiked collar around his throat that I thought I recognized as mine…

"Holy Shit, Schu, you've ruined yourself," I gaped as I pulled on my jeans. He laughed and turned away to set up the hair dye. Nagi was checking the stalls, making sure we were alone and Crawford was standing by the door, gun in hand, just in case someone got around the lock he'd flipped.

Crawford looked clean now, crisp in a navy business suit, white shirt and green tie. He looked like a politician, his glasses were absent and his eyes were also green from contact lenses. Nagi was dressed like any normal American teenager, even his pants were hanging low and his hair was messier than usual, both of which were probably driving him crazy. Once he had finished checking stalls, he leaned against the wall, his hands stuffed into the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt and watched us all moodily.

Once I was dressed, Schuldig set about dying my hair, squirting glops of semi-clear gel and scrubbing it against my scalp. The gel made my skin writhe and my nose clog up with the stench. It was awful, bad enough to make my eyes water. I very briefly pitied women who dyed their hair, for all the trouble they went to just for idiotic men.

The moment, thankfully, passed swiftly. It ended about the same time Schuldig jerked my head under the faucet of the skin and rinsed out my hair. When I sat up again, it was a darker shade of brown than was on the box, but as conforming as it got anywhere in the world. I looked entirely different but for my scars.

They didn't last lone either. In a shorter time than it took to dye my hair, Schuldig was slapping on concealer and other makeup to smooth out my face. My scars virtually disappeared. I smiled and the reflection of another man grinned back at me. I raised a hand, he raised it too.

"Hold still," Schuldig grumbled as he tried to set a pair of dark sunglasses on my nose, "You look like a monkey."

I just kept grinning. I knew that if I looked like this, I could've walked right up to Ruth and stab her in the back without her even recognizing me. I could do the same thing to Esset operatives (which was the point, after all) and the thought of that was empowering.

"Are you done yet? Our train leaves in twenty minutes," Crawford groused, a very thick Southern accent shocking my ears. I turned to look at him, but he ignored me.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm done," Schuldig muttered, also in character. He sounded like an Irishman.

Nagi pushed off from the wall as I checked my reflection one last time, then Crawford unlocked the door and stepped out, Nagi following behind at a slower pace. Schuldig held me back for a moment or two, then led me out.

/We can't be seen together. Even disguised, someone could recognize us. Though I did I good job with you, I think./

_Where on Earth did you learn to use makeup like that?_

/Oh, things like that are easy when you can read the minds of women everywhere,/ he laughed.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 8_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's notes: **For some reason I keep spelling 'scar' as 'skar'.

What was the connection Schu was trying to create? A bit like the permanent binding of two minds. Specifics? I don't have any. In any case, it's really not helpful if you're caught by the enemy. They could take out half of a team, and that's a lot for four people trying to change the world.

How the four were disguised:

Schuldig: Very obviously, Goth Irishman.

Crawford: Red State politician/ lobbyist/ government official.

Nagi: Disgruntled Japanese-American teenager visiting his grandparents alone.

Farfarello: Average Joe named 'Joe Average'.

And who says Crawford's a stick in the mud? I'll betcha _he's_ the one who came up with Farf's false name.

* * *

**To My Readers: **(Am I loosing reviewers? TT)

**Rori Barton**Cute? Was I going for 'cute'?

Yeah…just a little…(smiles)

Sadly, though, I have to add the plot now…

Stupid plot…ruining all our fun…

Maybe in the epilogue?

**xKokurox**I you've had a bit too much caffeine…Tea does, in fact, have caffeine, you know. (quirks)

Farf X Nagi…Uh…I draw the line at kids. No underaged sex. Also, I personally don't like the combination. Surely, I know of authors who pull it off really well, and for that I commend them, but otherwise, I doubt I'd ever write it myself. As it is, the Farf X Nagi moment with the word 'love' was purely the kind of archaic language that up until the modern era was not demonized by…oh, let's blame the media. The word 'love' was extremely broad, and since Far's a little insane and very much a reader, he would've used the language if he was the character I've portrayed him as. (Which is probably entirely incorrect, but this is me not caring).

I got it the first time that you did not like Peter Pan. The question was redundant.

Go make friends you can badger. Or better yet, tell people you barely know in your classes or whatnot. I do the same time with webcomics (including shameless self-advertising).

Also, please don't live for my comic. I have the fear that you'll be disappointed and I'll somehow be responsible for a suicide if it ended in a way particular to my writing (i.e. tragic, though it might not…). As much as I dislike the general public, I would much more dislike being blamed for something I'm actually blamable for.

Ah, energy drinks. I stay away from those. I've seen my friend on Monster and nearly smacked her. As it is, I very rarely go 'what-the-fuck' anymore. I'm in college. You learn to live with it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Notes**: Golly, is it late enough? I just finished and it's midnight…

I'm in college…what the hell am I doing, going to bed at midnight? Oh yeah…I wake up at six…

I both hate and love my job…

* * *

**9**

* * *

The makeup worked. No one looked at me twice from bathroom to ticket counter to platform to seat. My bag of effects was stored overhead and I was curled up in my seat, across from Crawford, who was pretending he didn't know me and was politely ignoring me. Schuldig was six rows down on our side of the aisle and Nagi two rows behind us, opposing side, his seat pressed against the wall by the door.

I was watching the cities and countryside and suburbia pass by the window, appearing calm, relaxed, carefree even, but my hands were gripping the insides of the jacket I wore. Once or twice I had caught myself biting my nails. I was afraid to go to sleep because I might smear my makeup. Crawford's nose was deeply planted in a newspaper, one leg crossed over the other at the knee in a rather feminine fashion. I read the outside of the open paper, the front page…

'Six Dead From Car Bombing in Iraq, Two Americans Injured.'

I turned away quickly…forget it. I didn't want to read about it. Same depressing shit every day for six billion years…

I had absolutely no idea how Crawford could read it day after day after day after day…

/This, coming from a man who enjoys Russian literature…/ Schuldig remarked with a soft mental chuckle.

_Like you don't,_ I snapped back.

/Of course I don't, I don't read./

_A depressing fact indeed…_

/Crawford really needs to put you back on that Thorizane-shit…you're seeing all sorts of freaky things…/

No doubt he was looking through my recent memories and had noticed the slightly disturbing mucus-green muck monster in the seat next to me. I knew it wasn't real, even if it was breathing down my neck. I knew it wasn't real, but I still couldn't help being nervous because of it.

_Are you saying the world really doesn't have it's own sound effects? Not at all like the movies?_

/No, Far, it doesn't/

_How boring, _I thought with a smile.

/Hardly/

* * *

I didn't remember it, but I must've fallen asleep because Brad was shaking me, whispering 'wake up' at me. His eyes were hard, but a little bloodshot. He didn't wear contacts regularly, so I imagined they were irritating.

"What?"

"We got sleeper booths. Go nap there. I'll send for you in a few hours."

I checked my watch and groaned. "Midnight? Christ, Brad, you're cruel…"

"No one else will be around. Go and you can get four hours you might need."

I got up, still grumbling, and shook my legs awake, ignoring the tingling enough to walk straight. Brad had slipped me a card with the booth number on it, which I glowered at in the dim light. Damn sunglasses…I hated wearing them.

I slipped into the right booth, stooping against the short ceiling. I knew I was tall, like a lot of the Americans I assumed to have designed the train cars, so it surprised me how much I had to crick my neck down. I shut the door with a little more force the necessary and pulled off my sunglasses so I could peer about my new and thankfully temporary quarters.

I saw a black-haired boy waiting for me, all grins. For one deadly second I didn't recognize Schuldig and had almost punched him in the face. He smiled at me, unworried and waited as I struggled to pull back my momentum. I ended up falling against the opposing wall, but not with enough force to damage my shoulder.

I slid to the floor, clutching my chest as I glared at Schuldig. He flipped his hair off his shoulder, uncaring, and smirked at me.

"Nice reflexes," he commented smugly.

"I'm getting far too old for you to startle me like that, you arsehole," I snapped back.

He quirked his eyebrow at me, jet as the rest of his hair, and the smile slipped off his face like water.

"You're not old until you're well into your fifties…"

"You're only saying that because you're really a geezer," I snorted as I pulled myself back to my feet and looked for a sink or bowl to wash my face in.

"I am not old!" he snapped. True thing, that, he wasn't even thirty, but the stress of our lives had given all but Nagi one or two gray hairs…

/I know what you're thinking…/

"You don't just tell a severely mentally unstable person that, Schuldig. It sets them off," I warned kindly, voice sweet as I found a little sink in the wall. Nice booth, with plumbing…For once Brad actually splurged on the team…

Schuldig didn't answer, still feeling sore for the old comment. When I finished peeling off the thick layer of makeup from my face and looked at him, curious at his silence, he was flicking his hair back and forth, expression sour as lemons. I briefly missed the old length of his hair, disappointed with the new, shorter version (which to most men was enough to drive them crazy, myself included), but he cut my thoughts off with a glare.

I sighed and sat down next to him on the tiny bed, reached out to touch his hair in apology. He pulled away, effectively snubbing any attempts with an icy set to his face.

"If you aren't going to be sociable, could you move? I'm tired and Brad told me to get some sleep," I growled tartly, annoyed. His eyes narrowed slightly into the kind of look I assumed one got before he shot them, but he silently, slowly got off the bed. I didn't bother thanking him and rolled onto my side, facing the wall and shut my eyes.

I felt the bed sink, Schuldig sitting down again, his fingers in my hair and lips against my ear, but refused to acknowledge him. He knew I noticed, could read it right out of my head. He reveled in it and my stubbornness to pay him any attention.

"Funny how your hair hasn't fallen out, with all the shit your put it through…no doubt you'll bleach it to death when we're done…"

I would indeed. Seeing myself like this was terrifyingly normal. I shocked myself every time I looked in a mirror. I felt rather like a pigeon, attacking my own reflection.

"You know how hard it was to find a shade of makeup light enough for your face? Nearly drove me crazy…" he whispered as he ran a fingernail over my cheek and down my neck to my shoulder. I could barely repress the shiver it gave me every time his breath ghosted over my ear.

I shut my eyes tighter, trying to block him out without moving.

"You looked beautiful, though, so nice without a flaw on your face…not like yourself, but defiantly fuckable…"

"Is there something you wanted or are you just being a prick?" I finally snarled. He just smiled and ran his hands over my face again, eyes hungry.

"Not that you're fuckable now…" he murmured.

"Go away."

His mood shifted again, angry. I could see in the line of his body just how pissed he was…shit…

Mental explosion…it was a shoddy way to go, I knew. I'd seen it…

"God, Monica, what is your problem?!" he shouted, fists gripping the sheets.

I blinked.

Who the fuck was Monica?

_Schuldig?_

He took hold of my shoulders, fingernails digging into my shirt as he shook me.

"You can't say 'no', not after leading me on all this way, you little bitch!"

_Schu, you're projecting someone else…_

"Stupid whore…"

"Schu!" I snapped and broke his hold on me. I gently smack his cheek. "Wake up!"

He blinked…as if coming awake from a long nap, shivering very slightly.

"Far?"

I snapped my fingers in his eyes, "You all here?"

"Yeah…Oh, man, that guy was fucked up…I think he's going to rape his girlfriend…"

I started. Schu wasn't the type to give a crap about other people's problems…

"If he kills her, we'll get noticed," he explained as he got up, his legs weak. I shook my head and sat him down.

"Tell me where and I'll take care of it. You stay here, okay?" I said. Schu just nodded, tired.

"3D. Next car down."

* * *

Even through the door there were shouts loud enough to understand…I knocked, hard, and waited a moment before someone hideous jerked open the door. I was wearing the sunglasses again, but none of the makeup. He looked about as shocked to see me as I was to see him.

He looked exactly like the kind of person one would place as a landlord of a halfway house. My mind supplied the word 'convict' for me, even before I noticed gang tattoos on his thick neck. He was built like a bull and I was surprised to find that he did not, in face, have cloven hooves for feet. He might as well have, though, with the way he was snorting at me in not-so-silent outrage. He face was orange, just a shade or two away from tomato red.

"What do you want?" he demanded, his voice rough and savage. He looked and sounded like a killer, but hardly the graceful, professional kind. I wondered belatedly if he was packing heat.

There was a woman in the room behind him, hurriedly pulling her ripped shirt together over her breasts, her face smeared with tears and snot. There was a rising bruise on her cheek, but there didn't seem like any more damage to her.

"I'm a security officer on this train and loud noises were reported to be coming from this room," I moved to peek into the room further and he moved in my way, "Is everything all right, sir?"

"Yeah, fine. Go away." He made as if to slam the door in my face, but I slid my foot into the door jam and discreetly forced him to back up. I was inside before he even realized it. I smiled softly.

"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me, sir. We have policies about disruptive behavior," I said.

I felt rather like a cowboy in old black and white westerns I'd once watched as a kid.

'We here've got rules about disturbers of the peace'

"I'm not goin' nowhere with you, so fuck off and get the hall out of my room."

My smile widened a little more and I struggled to keep it from going manic.

"I thought you'd say that," I purred. There was a lot of posing with this man, but he was far from expert, I could see. My eye picked up subtle details about his body language that I knew he couldn't get from mine, both because he was an idiot and because I rarely, if ever gave my movements away.

It was like zen, how easily I could see his flaws, how he shifted his weight to accommodate a punch, not using all of his potential power, even as I brought the side of my hand against his neck, jamming a pressure point with one swift move. He went down with a crash, eyes rolling. I had barely moved, barely exerted effort. It felt kind of unfair, fighting someone untrained.

His girlfriend was watching me with horror. She knew I wasn't at all security.

I wondered if my mother had once looked like this broken woman…I turned away to drag the man into the hallway.

"Wait! Where are you going?!" she asked, his voice high and sad, "Don't take him!"

I turned, surprised.

"You _want_ this man to abuse you?" I asked.

"He wasn't…he…"

There was a moment's silence, then I dropped the man back into her arms.

"Stupid," I muttered and left.

I'd wasted thirty minutes I could've slept through.

* * *

"People are so stupid…why are we bothering to help them again?" I growled as I ripped off my socks and lay down on the tiny bed. Schuldig's arm slid over my waist and he placed his head on my shoulder with a sigh.

"Because Brad tells us to?"

"Well…" I said, "That's reasonable…But when we're free, when Esset's dead, can we stop taking orders from him? I think he's going senile with all the nice shit he's making us do."

"Think about that woman, Far. You saved her from potential rape."

"Not really. They'll be other times. It's a hopeless cause," I said.

"You don't care? Not after…Ruth was…"

"Ruth and that woman are different. At least Ruth was smart enough to leave the situation, even if she wasn't smart enough leave me well enough alone. That woman, she'll never leave because she thinks she loves him, or she's too scared too. Yes, it's a terrible thing, what happened or what will happen, but we, as the makers of our own fates, don't need help if we don't' bother helping ourselves."

Schuldig propped himself up on his elbow to smiled at me.

"You're so inspiring…"

"I am not, lay down so I can get some goddamn sleep…"

"And you're adorable when you're angry."

I sighed and turned on my side. Schuldig laughed softly and lay down again, chest tight against my back.

"Good night, liebe."

"Shut the hell up, Schuldig," I growled with a little less force than usual. He laughed again, against my neck and went to sleep.

* * *

The heady scent of musk was so deep in my nose it was part of my being, sweet and disgusting at once, utterly and irreplaceably human and nearly enough to make me deny existence of God forever…almost.

Once Catholic, always Catholic…no matter what you did to snuff it out, there was always that irresistible urge to fight the one thing you knew didn't really exist.

I sighed and pressed my face harder against Schuldig's shoulder, nose nearly in his armpit as I came awake. He muttered softly in his sleep, something in Chinese, and moved against me. I smiled, pleased at this moment of peace. It was like early mornings in the Takatori days, where he and I would lay in bed past noon, napping and watching one another sleep. But for the motion of the train below and around us, I might've thought we were back in Japan, at those contented times.

I pressed my face against his skin for another long breath and wound my fingers into his thick hair, bushy from sleeping on it. It was almost at his shoulders again, falling into s blunt cut, barely styled but for old layers left out of laziness. His bangs were to his cheeks now, in his eyes at every moment…

I sat up slowly, sheet around my waist as I leaned over him, counting freckles on his white face, watching his thin lips as he spoke other people's dreams like a man in rapture at a church. It was beautiful…I had no idea why someone like him would love me, but I was pleased that he did…

I couldn't have picked a better mate myself…

He slowly came awake, stretching slowly, almost lavishly, like, of course, a cat, and scratched his scalp. His eyes came blearily open and his mouth curled in a soft smile at me. I reached down and stroked his cheek with a rough fingertip and he stretched again.

/Are you two awake yet?/ Brad's voice snapped through the link, breaking the moment like a grenade in a shop full of mirrors. I ground my teeth in annoyance.

_What?!_ I snapped back.

Brad's voice was viciously cool/Get dressed and report back to my seat. Ten minutes/

That was it; he was gone, leaving us to pick up the shattered fragments of one of the most goddamn romantic moments of my life. I hated him more than anything for the ten minutes it took for Schuldig and me to drag ourselves out of bed and pull on our clothes. The minute it took Schuldig to slap on my makeup was tense with mutual agitation, then we were moving along the tiny hallway through the car and into the group of seats Crawford and Nagi occupied, both reading their own sections of newspapers. Crawford was doing a crossword and Nagi was flatly reading the comics. Schuldig immediately stole the sudoku puzzle and sat down. I followed, taking the front page, but not reading it.

"The car is empty for the time being. This is a good time to discuss our plans," Brad said as he filled in the boxes.

"Which are," I asked coldly, still annoyed with him. He barely even looked at me.

"We're moving north, briefly, south, then west. We're going to hit every Esset outpost in America we can, gather an army, and then move them to Europe for the grand finale."

So it was in sight, the end…sooner than I'd thought.

"What about South America?" Nagi asked. I remembered that there were a lot of faculties in Brazil, where I'd one trained, and wondered why I hadn't asked that question myself.

"We've got agents working there undercover. When the time comes, they'll move in and disable any potential threats. At the moment, though, they aren't necessary."

"But we've got everything else covered?" Schuldig countered. Brad nodded.

"To the best of our ability, yes. We have enough agents planted around the world to stop anyone from coming to back up Headquarters. Once we get through America, we're moving on Austria."

Austria…I shivered the same moment Schuldig there. Our telepath and leader had trained there, gone through the worst imaginable tortures, surviving solely by chance. I'd heard Schuldig tell tales of the faculties there, which were almost as bad as the death camps from Nazi Germany and occupied Poland in 1944, where children were starved within an inch of their sanity, beaten, cursed beings. There had been two sectors a trainee lived in, the strong and weak. The weak were fair game to all the strong, raped and murdered at will of any childish leader clawed his way to the top. Schuldig told me about one of his childhood friends, a little empathy boy who'd been raped and strangled in the faculty.

Crawford never talked about his training; let us assume it had been worse. He'd gone to an officer's camp where boys and girls were picked apart like bread in the beaks of ravens. Most were said to go insane or kill themselves. Of course, most of the trainees of Schuldig's degree also committed suicide. Even Schuldig admitted to almost hanging himself from his bunk, only to be cut down from a supervisor and beaten for it.

Schuldig clapped his hands together in front of my face and I blinked out of my thoughts.

"Sorry…"

He was smiling, eyes flickering with malicious glee.

"Don't be. By all means, remember…Remember everything horrible they did to us and let it lead you. We're finally going to give them hell for it," Brad said, his voice soft, gentle even.

Nagi was sitting stiff in his seat, his page of newspaper crinkling in his grip.

We had no idea what they'd done to him…We knew it was worse.

He'd only been a child…his whole life had been horrible.

He was still a child…

I placed my hand on his shoulder, smiled gently when he looked up at me, fear warring with fury in his eyes.

"I'm okay, Far," he whispered, "I'm glad…I want to kill them."

I smiled wider. "You do that, kiddo."

His lips moved in a smile and he went back to his paper.

* * *

From Washington D.C. to New York city. From there to Chicago to Atlanta to Dallas. From Texas north to Kansas to Colorado. Then north to Seattle and south again to Los Angeles.

It was hot, dead in the center of July and so dry my nose bled every time I sneezed from the smog. We'd destroyed over twenty faculties in eighteen states, freeing well over six hundred man, woman and child talents. Well over half of those were coming with us to Europe, traveling separately or in small, discreet groups by boat and plane.

Brad, Nagi, Schu and I were still in California, covering our tracks from the most recent hit and celebrating with a scoop of ice cream. I hadn't had ice cream since Japan almost a year since Takatori. It was nice, laughing with them as we told jokes and prodded fun at one another like family.

Brad was the first to go silent, Schuldig following close behind. Nagi and I looked up, surprised at their sudden tenseness.

"Shit," Brad whispered just before something like super-powered static electricity lunged down the block in our direction, taking out cars and anything electrical on it's way.

Eletroshock wave…Esset agents, strong ones, were controlling it.

They'd found us…

_Fin Chapter 9_

_Please Review_

**Author's Notes: **How's that for a cliffhanger?! HAHAHA!

Mmm…comments…

I can't believe I actually made Farfarello and Schu play 'the heroes'. I am beyond disappointed with myself.

I'm listening to Gorillaz 'White Light' at double speed. It's hilarious…

I'm clearing some stuff for my own benefit:

Schuldig's hair is shoulder length now, cut for disguises Brad puts him in, and dyed black and gothy. His eyebrows are also black now.

Esset headquarters are in Austria now, since I don't know where it is really. Austria was under German occupation…why not, eh? Other faculties are in Brazil, Denmark, Spain, the UK, Japan, Congo, India, plus various spots in America and China. There are others, but they aren't as important to the story.

Electromagnetism is the control of magnetism in all metal objects. It's the same thing Magneto from X-men has.

Electroshock is the control over electricity in and around objects. There is little doubt that I will mix these two up.

The new villains are friggin' awesome and I haven't even developed them yet!

Also…I'm kind of in the last two weeks of the semester. Exams are coming and I really, REALLY need to study. This means you either won't hear from me until Christmas or you'll get something every day from my sheer insane refusal to do something productive like actually working.

I changed my shampoo and now my hair smells fantastic…(smells hair) I'm getting high off it…

**To My Readers: **

**TheInflictedFinger: **

Changing Currency Chapter: I liked how your reviews got progressively stranger. It was entertaining. I shall be continuing the weiss fic and I hope to continue to hear from you (hint, hint)

Sleep of Sinners Chapter: No worries. I like psychotic fangirls. Makes sense, though, having a psychotic fangirls for a fic about a psychotic misfit. I'm rather psychotic myself (of course I seem to have calmed down a bit since leaving high school…hmm). As it is, I still giggle like crazy whenever I see anime murderers…Alucard and Farfarello are my favorites.

Cello Prose: Raw like a slab of beef in a butcher's freezer.

Dandelions: I update anywhere between three times a week and once every six months depending on my personal interest on the story, creative flow, and the amount of reviews I get. Swear to God, reviews help.

**StarTrekObsessed** Yeah, I know what it's like living in a homo-bashing family. Both of my parents are ultra-conservative. Lucky me, I've kept my writing from them. Considering how much Yaoi/Shonen-ai I actually write, they'd turn me out if they ever found out. You have my sympathies. And thank you for reviewing.

I couldn't decide on the word emigration or exodus and even now I'm not sure what I picked was better.

'Farf' always seemed kind of degrading, or if not that, at least exceedingly familiar in the uber-polite nation of Japan. Also, for the Farfarello I was portraying, it was too damn cutsie…

I'm a lazy speller.

This mistake of shutter and shudder was entirely unintentional and thank you for catching that. I will try to be careful next time.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Notes: **Listening to the Pixies while reading this may help with understanding m awful fight-scene-writing-skills…

Fight scenes suck. It should all be romance and it should be that I never got bored of it…

Ah well…that's nature…

Oh yeah, and the Kansas state government is fucking insane. So is England for the human-animal gene crossing. I feel like I'm living in an anime already and it's scary as hell…

Although a world without men as a necessity is an interesting thought…

Right, like you care about my politics…Chances are you have dual citizenship to Kansas AND the UK…

Screw tact!

* * *

**10**

* * *

The aftershocks of the wave were still shaking the buildings around us like an earthquake. Cars were toppled onto their sides like matchbox toys and people ran out of their workplaces in panic, women screaming as they fluttered around, lost on their red and black high heels. Men knocked them aside in their own determined escape, peppered hair askew and exposing their balding foreheads.

I struggled to my feet, dragging Schuldig up beside me. Crawford's shoes skidded as he clawed himself up against a brick wall; Nagi hovered close beside him, hair floating around his face, blue eyes glassy and focused under his pinched brow. His hands were moving out in front of him as he built a shield around our team. I obligingly moved closer to the boy, hauling a still cursing Schuldig beside me.

There was no fear. There was no time to think of fear. It was all instinct that I got close inside the shield and that I noticed how wide and dazed Schuldig's eyes were, the man was fighting off a telepathic attack while trying to keep our own team links up. It was pure training that made me press him to the brick wall, to glance once at brad to see that he was unhurt, and to draw my hidden blades, one from my sleeve, and another from my belt…

I smiled out at the still quivering world beyond Nagi's shield. I'd been waiting for this…

"You ready?" Crawford asked as he clicked the safety off on his gun.

"Brad," I snorted back, "I was _born_ for this." He just nodded and turned to face the approaching enemy, a team of three men dressed in army-styled black. They were a retrieval unit from Esset…it told us a lot about how they would fight…

Esset sent retrievals, so that meant the organization still wanted us, alive…They couldn't kill us, or wouldn't if they didn't have to…but we could most certainly kill them.

I already knew one was a telepath and another had the power controlling electronic waves, 'Eels' by agent slang, so that only left one more variable.

They looked strong, or at least thoroughly trained (but of course), but fresh in a kind of way killers never are. I doubted that outside of Esset faculties this team had never fought for its life. Recon and retrieval teams had it so easy…

Brad was issuing orders to each of us now, voice stern.

"Schuldig, shut down the team link and take out their telepath."

"That shouldn't…be much of a challenge," Schuldig huffed as he forced the other telepath out of his mind, his face streaming with sweat.

"Nagi, once I give you the word, drop the shields and take out their Eel."

"Hai."

"I'll go after the leader. Far, you back anyone up that needs it."

"Roger," I smiled, counting the seconds until we _finally_ got to fight…

"Okay…" Brad took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses, "GO!"

Nagi's shields dropped and the boy was flying like a cannonball at the team, tearing the eel away from his team with invisible hands and flinging him away to fight. Schuldig's team link was forced silent as he shoved the telepath out and made his own mental attack. Crawford had his gun aimed and took a couple of shots at the last man left, but the leader was apparently wearing Kevlar.

"The head! Aim for the head!" I screamed after Brad, keeping my post at Schuldig's side for the moment, watching.

Watching in horror as that other man, that variable, that leader took hold of a car's roof and lifted it clean off the ground and throw it at Crawford.

Schuldig grabbed my shoulder before I could even think about moving, shouting after Brad to move, his grip almost faltering as we watched him roll out of the way just in time.

Dear God…he's a Strongman…I'd never seen one before, but I'd heard stories. Strongmen were the kinds who were usually posted as guards, killers or sometimes trainers for their unsubtle nature. They could tear men in half with their fingers…

I blinked and saw Crawford's gun wasn't in his hand. He must have dropped it in his effort to escape and it's trapped under the car remains…My throat clenched and I shook Schuldig's hand off my shoulder.

"Far…"

"Kill the telepath. They aren't recon. Kill the telepath and get our goddamn link back up!" I shouted, storming toward that monster leader who was now chucking anything it saw at Crawford, mailboxes, lamp posts, people…

A dog when yelping over my head, a paw just brushing my hair before it slammed into the wall with died with a sickening crush of bones. I didn't like dogs, but this was too much…I wanted to vomit.

I fingered my knife and edged closer to Crawford's hiding spot behind a upturned car. He was disheveled, panting, eyes wide and blind. He'd lost his glasses too…he couldn't see a damn thing. It was a wonder he'd ducked everything else that had come his way. When I was close enough I let him touch my face, take a moment to recognize me.

"Schu will tell us when he's gotten rid of the telepath. You're done. Let me take care of this Goliath."

He looked up at me, slightly blind, and laughed.

"You are no David, my friend."

I smiled, "You're right, I'm no good with slings."

I turned and rolled out into the open, knives bared, mouth smirking in the afternoon sun, my tennis shoes not giving me any traction to speak of as I rushed the Strongman, every survival instinct within me leaving by the nanosecond.

And I was there, crouched low and powering up again, knowing I had to get a knife in him without him touching me. If he did, I was dead and so was my team. My feet landed on his shoulders and I landed as hard as I could on them, forcing him to his knees. When he groaned, his kneecaps smashed hard into the pavement, and reached up for my ankles, I was gone. I'd jumped away again, laughing as he spun around to find me.

"Bastard!" the Strongman screamed, trying desperately to find his feet again. Somewhere a half block away screamed and I felt the team link go back on. Either Schuldig had won or we were all fucked.

Tentative fingers prowled into my brain, twisting into my thoughts and hissing at them.

A strange voice in my head, seething like smoke/Well…aren't you a screwy little boy? Never have a seen a mind like this in one who still functions…of course, even that won't be long…/

I could feel the telepath's sneer, like the teeth of a saw blade on the back of my neck…it made my skin crawl.

"Schu…"

The Strongman was free and I was running for cover, trying to think…he was…the telepath was…

Something I knew was a memory flashed in my head, coming to life before my eyes, like a film over real life. The mammoth man coming at me wasn't a man at all, but a monster, my monster, my childhood terror and product of my own mind.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but I could still feel him coming.

"No…" I was moaning, "Please, God no…"

/There is no God/ the telepath whispered into my ear, even as I felt the Strongman take hold of my arm and rip me to my feet. I felt something pop in my shoulder and my arm went limp. I cringed as bone slid around bone, the sensation disgusting enough to make me grind my teeth.

It was pain that saved me, pain I had never understood in any way but subjectively…it brought me back to myself, to focus on the pain of my shoulder's grinding bone…

I opened my eyes and the nightmarish hallucination grinned down at me, a hand sliding around my throat. I still had a hand free, though, and found myself clutching my knife desperately. I lunged and jammed it into his shoulder. He yelped and dropped me, whining over his wound like a boy who'd been stung by a bee. I crawled away and tried to find Nagi through our hacked team link.

_Prodigy!_

/I hear you/ was the faint reply…maybe he didn't know the link was corrupted…was I giving him away? There was no choice…quick and sacrificial thinking now…/The eel is silenced. Oracle and Mastermind are injured. Status report?/

He sounded like a younger version of Crawford. It was creepy as hell…

I felt the telepath advancing now, in the physical and mental realms together, forcing more night fears on me as I tried to ignore them…I felt a cockroach on my fingers…I knew it wasn't real, but I flinched.

_I need your ass here yesterday!_

/Understood./

The Strongman was finally daring to edge closer, and I struggled to my feet, my vision swimming as my body went into light shock…I hadn't had a wound like this in a while…

I could feel something crawling on me and tried to bat it off, but it wouldn't leave…it just kept coming up my leg, slithering with a million tiny feet and fluttering bug wings.

/Poor little boy…Are you frightened?/ the telepath purred and slid into my vision like a waif of serpentine smoke, then his face altered, swam and regrouped…He smiled and opened his eyes to me/I can make it so they go away forever, Jei…/

_Sister Ruth?_

/Come here, sweetheart…It's all right…/

My face hardened. My grip found itself around the blade's handle. I squinted and tried to clear my head.

"She never called me that…" I smirked.

I mentally searched for the most gruesome memories I possessed, from movies and life and imagination and poured them through my consciousness, feeling him recoil in disgust.

I could feel my mind clear minimally, just enough for me to duck out from under the Strongman's reaching hand and into an alley to wait. A hand grabbed me from behind and I felt my body freeze in the lock of a gigantic hand.

"It's me," Nagi hissed into my ear when I tensed. I sighed and nodded and leaned against the wall when he released me.

"There is two of them. One is a telepath and right now he's got a really good hold on my memories is that a cockroach, holy shit, is that a cockroach?!" I asked as I saw a huge brown insect climb across Nagi's face…

"No! Farfarello, calm down…"

They were everywhere…I had just walked into a hive of the things…They were all over me, eating me…my fingers were already half gone under their jaws.

"Kuso…"

/Time to say goodnight, little boy/ the telepath hissed/I promise to take good care of your friend…/

Something clicked in my head and-

* * *

_Fin Chapter 10_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes**: Duh, duh, DUUUUUUH! Oh, the drama…

Yes, the ending is supposed to be that abrupt. No, the chapter wasn't supposed to be this short. I'd rather call it a filler from bad planning (all this assuming I'm making any plans at all, really, which is generous if not foolish), but you can think what you like. Really, I'd write more, but I like this cliffhanger business…I can't help myself, even I'm on the edge.

What will happen next?! What?!

Poco will probably fail her Algebra exam, that's what…because she was writing and not studying…

Expect a next chapter either very soon or very far away. You know I can't stay away long…

Anyway, if this is really as bad as I assume (I don't know, I barely edited), I'm sorry. My brain's kind of dead and on overdrive at the same time. Kind of had an English exam today, so I've been cranking out stuff like this non-stop since this morning…I promise the next one will be reader-friendly.

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**StarTrekObsessed: **is it? I can't recall precisely, but it WAS a while ago, ne?

Surreal is a good word, much better than my definition as 'second though, optional'.

(laughs)

**Rori Barton: **You know I do this to you on purpose…(leer)

**TheInflictedFinger: **My friends have often suggested 'Monster'. I'd never do it, I've nearly smacked people who were on it, but it might help you…


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Notes: **I'm not sure I like Black Flag. I don't hate them, but really they seem like car music than anything I could sit down and enjoy like I could Mozart or Pink Floyd.

Go figure.

* * *

**11**

* * *

I think I'm awake, but I could just as easily be asleep. I know that when my eye is closed, it's black, but when it's open it looks the same. I can't tell now if it's shut or not, just that they keep drying out.

It's so dark I can't tell if I'm lying down or hanging from the ceiling. It's so dizzying, the lack of senses, the fear that overtakes you when you wake up in some unknown…place…

I've had nightmares like this, being trapped in the dark, suffocated by it and hunted by the things that live within it…like those cockroaches…I shiver.

No, I can't think like this. Get a hold of yourself, Farfarello or you'll drive yourself crazy and useless if they ever come back. This is all assuming you weren't simply thrown into a well and left to die (which would be awful, but I don't feel any water).

I slowly reach out (at least I'm not tied up) and feel the floor around me. I'm sure I'm lying down now, on something smooth and cold, probably concrete. My shoulder and hip throbs with stiffness from where I was lying. I very slowly roll onto my back and shut my eye. I breathe very softly and slowly, ignore my heartbeat and listen. There is nothing in this room but me, if my hearing is clear. No other breaths, no shuffle of clothing, no scurrying of tiny mouse feet or the soft clicks of other, less pleasant things.

I've been in rooms like these before. They're remotely like the places kept for interrogations, but without chair and oppressive light. It's almost like the cell I'd once had in an asylum when someone was smart enough to figure I was dangerous. Of course, that cell at least had a mattress…there is nothing here, just smooth floor, and as I slide my hands and feet as far around as possible, smooth walls.

I slowly get up, blind and wondering how Crawford does it every day (he shaves without his glasses and never gets cut), my feet, bare, slapping on the concrete floor much louder that I would've liked. I feel the walls with my fingers, going slowly to try and find irregularities, clips, knobs, a fucking door, a window, but there is nothing. This is one very well made cell, I muse as I reach as high as I can to feel for a ceiling. I'm not tall enough.

I sigh and sit down. Nothing to do but wait. I feel around my head for the team link, but it's gone. It feels like some wide open space is left over from where it was removed in my sleep. Something like horror yawns wide in my stomach, but I am outwardly unmoved. I sigh again, fingering my knuckles. My hands feel cartoonish in the dark, and even though I know they aren't, my fingers feel long and thin as stretched puddy, large wooden beads for knuckles once too many times cracked. My hands are rippled on the backs, one from a burn scar and another from blood vessels, both palms are calloused from handling knives, but my right has a very small gun powder burn I don't remember getting.

Something flashes in my head, a memory, a fantasy…An uplit tree, dead branches reaching for the black night sky. It's huge or I'm small, a boy running past, running away, so many times…

I come back to the room, to my hands, wondering what that was all about. Probably nothing knowing my own canny thoughts. Nothing ever follows a line for me, nothing organized. I remember when I was very young they wondered why I was so easily distracted…

Something outside the room clanks, a door, the jingling of keys, heavy booted footsteps, wide enough for a tall man, even enough to know he is strong, broad and healthy…I am against the wall in seconds, pressing my ear against it to listen so fast I slap it against the concrete. It's coming closer, directly at me, ant then stops in front of the door.

The keys jingle and one slides into what I know to be a hole. I quickly measure the height of the keyhole against my body, it's at my hip. I listen, six slow clicks as it turns, six heavy levers to push, I figure. The door is pushed in, and there is no hiss of a broken airtight seal.

The light that pours in is blindly white and I close my eye and shrink away from it like a vampire, even as I try to look through my fingers at my captor, the large bodied man whose shadow takes up the whole doorway. He reaches in and pulls me to my feet, drags me struggling out into the hallway.

"Who are you?!" I demand, fighting his grip and loosing the battle dramatically. I think I'm drugged… "Where's my team?! Let go!"

He is unresponsive, trained to ignore his prisoners, to think of them as slabs of meat perhaps. We make some turns that I don't manage to remember and he drops me inside of another room, exactly like an interrogation room, including chair, light and a black shiny wall of one-way glass…There are other figures there, three of them. Two come and pick me up and lock my wrists to the arms of the chair, my ankles to the legs that are bolted to the floor. I vainly struggle before a voice speaks, a voice I do not recognize, accented thick Italian.

"There is no need to struggle, you will not break free. Sit, relax, I know that cell is far from comfortable."

I looked up, but there was little to see outside the realm of my overhanging light. The shapes were moving around, but I couldn't tell them apart. They all looked the same…

"Your name is Farfarello, codename Berserker, yes?" the voice asked. I didn't hear the shuffling of the inevitable file folder, my file folder. That meant this questioner was behind the glass.

I did not reply.

"Answer, please. Your name is Farfarello, correct?"

"Where is my team?" I hissed, my arms straining against the bonds. My eyes were on the shapes in front of me.

"We ask the questions here," the voice said, still genteel, "You are Farfarello?"

"Are you Esset?" I asked. There was silence, enough to signify a 'yes'. I smiled at the men looming over me in the dark. "Then you already know. Move on to the harder questions please."

"You do not feel pain, do you? Of course, it says here that you do not from a childhood disease. Is that correct?"

"Why are you still with Esset? Why didn't you overthrow them while they were weak? Why do you continue this torture? There is no way that they'll ever create a 'better world' they advertise and leave anything left for little underlings like you."

A sigh, his sigh.

"Seeing to your disability, we will find another way to draw answers you are unwilling to give. Before that time, though, would you perhaps like to volunteer any information?"

"Actually yes, I would," I snipped, my head turning to panel of glass, "I think your voice is sexy as hell. Wish my boyfriend had a voice like yours."

No reply. Any lesser men would've been either sniggering or hitting me with riot batons.

I was pulled out of the chair and led back to my cell, remembering the way there this time so I could backtrack. I gave a complimentary struggle before the guard shoved me back into the blackness.

* * *

Black as ink,

As tar,

As Nagi's hair,

As the hair of a widow spider,

As the night on the bottom of the ocean,

Black as the death of sunshine.

My days and nights feel switched, though I cannot tell the time, nor base it off of sleep. I do not sleep out of fear, much like I didn't sleep at the asylums. I know my shoulder was put back into its socket before I woke here the first time, because I felt around for it, and it was fine.

Black as a cup of black willow tea,

Black as the pupils of Schuldig's eyes,

As a winter night's sky in the city,

Black as the blood on a crucifix in Ireland, inside the black dark of my mother's coffin, wrapped so lovingly in her rotted black fingers as the black headed grub worms chow down in the six feet of rich black soil of what never really felt like home.

Black as love followed by betrayal,

Black as lost causes,

As the loss of hope.

I will not loose hope. I have light in my thoughts and they are all I need to see.

* * *

I miss the team. I wonder where they are when I'm not counting heartbeats or breaths. I wonder if they are trapped like me, speculate about what tortures would be used to gather information.

Once I hope they'd gotten away, especially Nagi. Schuldig is a close second and Crawford's right behind. They're still so young, all of them. We're all young. God, Crawford's barely even thirty now, even if he refuses to act like it.

I miss them. I miss them so bad it digits scream for something to tear apart, my stomach writhes and my throat closes to hold off any screaming.

If they think ignoring me, or forcing me to sit on my own for any length of time and break from it, they could be wrong, but not by much. I don't get bored so much anymore, since the tower when something really did start dematerializing in my brain. Or maybe it was simply lack of medications?

Who knows, and who cares? Tink keeps me company and senses telepathic presences faster than I, and it was my head Schuldig occupied the most. During those time I try to meditate, like Crawford taught me, cross legged on the floor with my back straight and stable, hands rested on my knees, palms down. I count breaths without counting, simply identifying them, letting thought go. I think of the color white.

Hospitals.

Clean linens on the line.

Those awful suits we wore during the Takatori years.

White, black, and a series of grays.

Esset seeps color out of everything. I imagine that's why I'm so pale, simply to amuse myself and to annoy my telepathic pest.

Occasionally they take me out, down a series of hallways in a hopes to confuse me, but really it's only showing me more of the premises. They ask me questions, simple questions because we're still trying to figure out what my name is. They ask, I ask anything in reply.

They say I am not aware of my situation, which I find fucking hilarious.

I know exactly my situation, I just don't care.

They don't ask me anything about the team or about my life. They try to get some information on the Takatori family and later how we managed to kill the Elders. Again, I refuse to reply.

"Let dead dogs lie," I giggle after a series of pointlessly prodding me for information. Once or twice the shadowy men hit me, one got a good hit across my cheekbone that bled for fucking ever after they put me back in my cell. I licked up the blood, smiled at them with it pink on my teeth.

Abuse meant that they were getting impatient, that someone higher up the scale was lowering them to the frying pan if they didn't get whatever I kept in my head.

They tried a few other times to hurt me, a burn to my wrist, my forearm, my opened sore of a cheek where they had hit me before. Really the burn was good, kept it from getting infected, and I didn't feel a damn thing. The smell of burning flesh made my stomach grumble. They hadn't fed me much.

"Have you ever eaten another human being, Farfarello?" the voice asked when my stomach pleaded for nourishment. I laughed and bared my teeth at the closest shadow to my arm, the one holding the red-orange hot poker. Someone else in the darkness had a blowtorch, when the poker got too cool.

"How so? Raw, cooked, just the blood? You have _got _to be more specific," I purred.

"Any."

Breath hissed out of me, something like the sated pleasure comfortably settling in my stomach, like after a good fuck, "Yes."

"Of course, you did not believe they were human."

"Is this a psychoanalysis? Are you trying to displace some of my insanity? Of course they were human. They screamed so nice, but the silence after I slit their throats was so much better."

I was put back in my cell without another word, laughing until tears ran down my cheeks, even from my empty eye. I counted the light fixtures as I passed them.

* * *

When I wake up, I'm in another room, this one with a light so bright I think it's boring into the back of my skull. Eye open or closed, it's more penetrating than the darkness. The room is padded and I'm in a crisp white straight jacket, the rough cloth directly against the skin of my chest, my arms tightly hugging my frame.

I'm loosing weight.

My bangs are long enough to poke me in the eye, a hundred strands at a time and I have no way to wipe them away. I give myself whiplash trying to get them away.

I'm surprised they didn't put me in a face mask. I'm not ungrateful, those are unpleasant, the leather doesn't breathe and you get sores on your face if you wear one too long.

The questioning seems to get less frequent, or perhaps time is simply slowing down. Tink is quiet for the first time in her life; she sleeps most of the time now. She's so small curled up on the peak of a pillowed section of floor. Her dress is leafy green, her skin almost the same color. Her wings are translucent, like an insect, shimmery and glossy and really rather pretty.

I'm glad she's stopped trying to hurt me.

* * *

"Good morning, Farfarello. We have decided what to do with you," Mr. Italian voice says, ever pleasant, even genteel. Even now I want to cut his balls off and feed them with eggs to a blind man.

"If that isn't' ominous, I don't know what is," I snort back.

"Even though you and your team's…actions were seriously against our Corporation's objectives and teachings, you are eligible for reeducation. Of course with your several mental and physical conditions, that is not a possibility. In short, you are no longer necessary to Esset and your employment is from now on terminated."

"So I'm out of a job, great. Can I go now?" I snapped back, struggling against my bonds, now including thick canvas with the steel.

"I'm afraid that isn't a possibility. You will be processed with the other inmates and sentenced to punishment fit for your crimes."

"What crimes?"

"You and your teammates, Oracle, Prodigy and Mastermind, were primary active members in the murder of the Three Elders."

"And what's going to happen to them?"

A slight pause. I could almost feel it ripped with a malicious chuckle. He was enjoying this, the rise it was getting out of me.

"They have already been processed and executed. Take him out now."

I was released from the chair, still in my momentary shock.

There was nothing left for me…nothing…

"Jei, you dumb bastard, this is your chance! Get the hell out!" I heard Tink scream into my ear, "Kill them! Kill them!"

I looked up and sure enough one of the shadowmen was leaning over me, his whole throat exposed and just begging to be ripped out. I thought of the lifeblood just beneath his skin and my mouth watered.

I prayed he didn't have any STD's, then lunged and bit. He screamed and tried to pull away as I sank my teeth harder. It was he who ripped his own throat out, I simply held on.

"Drop the throat, move to the next one. He's behind you with a dart gun," Tink directed.

Roundhouse kick and the gun was clattering to the floor. A second later I landed my heel into his neck, punching down hard on a pressure point. One more left, backed against the wall in fear after I'd so easily killed his fellows. I could smell it now, the fear and I savored it like a hungry dog.

The only thought I had when I was killing him was 'Ikea is a joke'.

I guessed I had less than a minute to get myself out of there. I already knew I could get out of straight jackets (made it a practice in the Takatori years, just to piss Brad off), and I got to work, my head moving around so I could find another escape route. Nothing, just bare, flat ceiling.

I could already hear the footsteps. My shoulder popped out of the socket and I winced even as I pulled the loops of sleeves off over my head and started undoing the buckle the kept the ends of my sleeves connected. Soon, they were open and I had two weapons swinging from the end of each arm.

I grabbed the dart gun from the floor and shot out the light. Everything when pitch black and I crouched down to wait.

I didn't have to wait long, the door was kicked open and men were pouring in. They stopped to look around when they saw the light was out. Someone was yelling into a radio to get the lights back on. Futile.

I waited until the last one was inside and shut the door behind them, locked it. They turned to face it, panicked like sheep now.

"Are you afraid of the dark?" I whispered, "Its okay, I am too…"

* * *

The straight jacket's off now, I've stolen the uniform off one of the now deceased guardsmen. I don't expect it to actually hide me if confronted, but at least I have clothes, and out of the corner of someone's eye, they'd never know the difference.

There is a gun in the holster, resting against my hip like the hand of a lover. I have six more tucked into my pants pockets, coat pockets, the inside of my shirt. They are all of the same kind of handgun, standard issue, semi-automatic.

I'm moving down the halls like the wind, my mind shut against any telepathic intrusion I am strong enough to hold back alone, even Schuldig's team link. I kill anyone I see, guard, white-clad man or woman I assume to be doctor or nurse. I am lost, but I know where I need to be.

A window. I need a window or a door out. Stairs, anything of the sort.

I end up walking straight past a window and have to backtrack. Outside it the dreary dark night of a city, what I think looks a bit like Paris. I count the windows and find I'm on the eighth floor.

No time to wait and think about jumping. I try to open the window, but it's locked and the wire mesh in the glass won't let it break. I shoot out the lock, loose some time trying to get it open, and crawl out onto the windy ledge.

Shit, it's a long way down…

I start climbing, looking into each window, where everyone seems frantic. Above me a young woman with dead black eyes calls after me to come back, that I'll kill myself. I keep climbing.

My grip is faltering by the time I get to the fifth floor. I'm a lot weaker than I was from the lack of food and exercise. The window I look in isn't busy and I pick the lock open quickly, kick the pane open and slip inside.

* * *

There is something sinister about this floor, something dark about the silence that is drawn over it like a velvet curtain. There aren't any screams, or the scuff of sneakers on the linoleum, but mine. There are no beepings of heart rate machines or the soft whispered conversations of inmates telling life stories.

I start opening doors, hoping to find both a way out and a clue to the whereabouts of my teammates. The Italian Voice said they were dead, but I refused to believe him.

It's there then, a tentative touch in my head, something slipping underneath my shields. I have my gun to the back of my neck in an instant, a threat. If anyone tries to hijack my head, I'll kill myself and take them with me.

The voice is soft, but harsh, the German thick and intrusive but also intimate, as if it was being whispered into my ear and not my mind.

/Farfarello?/

_Where are you?_

/I don't know/ the voice is tired, about to fall asleep almost, and so raggedly exhausted/Walk. I can tell you when you're closer./

I move forward, my hands on my gun out in front of me as I turn corners.

/Warmer…warmer…no, colder, go back…yes…warmer…warmer…that door, yes, that door./

I slowly unlock and open the door in front of me, thinking now that I am so stupidly trusting a voice in my head that could so easily be replicated. I push it open anyway, ready for whatever fate lies for me.

So I think.

Schuldig is there, a shivering, dirty wreck of his former self, his hair shaven to his pink scalp and his cheeks shallow with hunger. Naked on the disused floor, I can see every one of his ribs, his thin hands, his shriveled penis.

"Oh God…"

"Far…Far, get us out of here…I can feel them coming…please hurry…" Schuldig begs, on his knees now, crawling toward me, crying. I tear off my coat and wrap it around his cold shoulders.

There is no way I can carry a naked man around Paris is not be seen…I have to find him some clothes and the exit.

I haul him to his feet and lead him into the hallway, looking for an exit.

_Nagi…Brad…_

/We'll be no good to them dead. Go left. I can hear a guard on his radio. Kill him, take his clothes and be quick about it./

I do as ordered, put him away in a closet and help Schuldig get dressed.

I was surprised that they hadn't caught us yet. I didn't think about it much, just kept us going in whatever direction Schuldig's stolen directions led us. He took whatever information needed out of the minds of the guards and I killed them.

We were out in a matter of minutes, really, without alarms, without the murder of many guards, without a whole lot of disruptions really.

"It's too easy," I said as I eased the door open, the door the led to the open night air.

"They think we'll stay for Nagi and Brad. They don't know us. Get out there before I kick you out," Schuldig snapped.

* * *

_Fin Chapter 11_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **School's out for me, but I'm still working. I loathe getting up at six in the morning, but it's better than scraping for every penny like I did in High School. Just spent a wonderful evening catching up with old friends back from college. It was great, we went out for sushi and even got mochi. Zoe and I got mango flavor.

And then I come home and my fake crab and seaweed high is ruined, meteorically thrown into the dirt and so deflated it could be a fallen soufflé. I was trying to make plans with another friend of mine, to be as accommodating as possible and the whole time my mother was muttering 'stupid, that's stupid, you're stupid.'

She went on to explain that I was being to accommodating and then attacking my friend about not trying to be more flexible for me. I've never taken well to having me or my friends criticized, so the moment she went outside to smoke I spat in her drink and locked myself in my room to work.

Some days living at home is worse than any dorm environment. At least you don't have call someone every ten minutes when you rarely, if ever, go out. This was the first time I've left the house for fun instead of school or work since the summer. One can imagine my mood…

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**TheInflictedFinger**Neither, actually. It's more of a childhood fear brought to the surface by the enemy telepath (much like the Strongman becoming a Bogey).

**StarTrekObsessed**: Movies are lied nicely packaged and sold to the viewer to make them believe that they too can do the things there. In reality, not so much. I agree completely, choreographing fight scenes are hellishly difficult, but since my early creations, I feel I have improved. So, even if this is awful, it was better than say, something I crammed out in eleven grade.

I don't read those kinds of books. And I wish desperately that I didn't get bored in a plot-less story, but that would be untrue. As it is, This is turning out more or less as I preferred, and I'm considering endings. I want a good twist to mess you readers up.

And in my last dream I was the Cat God, so no bishies, just cats feeding me offers of mice and purring at me that they approved of their deity.

**Rori Barton**: Evil? On, no, far from it. If I was evil, I would've ended it like that forever.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Notes: **This is a short chapter for a reason.

Edited? No. Spellchecked? Sorta. Emotion-and-Drama packed? You betcha.

* * *

**12**

* * *

Paris.

Cold. Rainy. Full of French people.

I was hurrying Schuldig along as fast as I could, into every building that looked remotely like a hotel even though we had no money and accessing the world accounts for Schwartz would be a dead ringer for our position if they were even looking for us. We could've stolen someone else's card, but Schu said he was too exhausted to even try.

We ended up in a tourist hostel full of American students. They were young, perhaps around my age give or take a few years, and happy, busy, nosy people who greeted us as if we were old friends now reunited, despite our bedraggled appearance. I shook them off, taking enough time to ask for fresh clothes from the desk, saying something like I would pay them back later or whatever. At the moment I wanted to get Schuldig into a bath. He was shivering from the wet.

Summer wasn't supposed to be this cold…

I locked us in the hall bathroom and started running hot water in the claw-footed tub. Really this was a nice place, actually clean and pretty cheap now that I thought about the rates the man at the desk was feeding me when I was distracted. Schuldig was slowly peeling his clothes off and shaking his head where his hair once was. I moved toward him, my hand reaching out to brush the stubble on his scalp, already growing back red as ever. He shrank from my touch reflexively, before his blue yes looked up at me apologetically.

I gathered him close, the both of us clutching each other with a certain degree of desperation. We were far from safe, but we had to stop and rest or we'd never get away. He was shaking and when he pulled away, his face was mottled with anger.

"They took Brad and Nagi. They said they were going to kill them," he whispered.

"When I was being questioned they said you three were already dead…"

"Brad _is_ dead," Schu blurted, his eyes brimming quickly with tears, the clear salty pearls dripping down his face and off of his pointed chin.

I felt as if he'd kicked me, right in the chest. I couldn't breathe. My hands clenched Schuldig's shoulders, my eyes wide and blind and staring at the wall behind him, but my knees buckled and my chest heaved trying to get breath.

"They didn't…they couldn't…"

"I heard it all, his last thoughts. He asked me to get you and the kid out, then to destroy Esset…even to the last second…He's gone, Far…"

"No! He's alive! He's-" I whispered frantically, and Schuldig knelt before me, clenched my chin in his hand.

"They shot him, right in the back of the head. Executed him. He's dead, Far. It's just us…"

NO! Wrong, wrong…this wasn't supposed to happen like this…

Schuldig pulled me into his chest, but I fought his hold weakly, fingernails raising welts on his bare skin while I cried, as quiet as I could.

"Brad…No…He's supposed to _be_ there…always…"

"I know, Far…"

He soothes me until I quiet down, then helps me to my feet and out of my clothes and into the bath, following close behind to keep me company. I'm still crying, but in a more controlled kind of mourning. In the mirror I can see that my face is dead white in fear and sadness and _anger_.

Schuldig feels his head, scrubbing soap against his scalp and I hiccup again.

"Your hair…"

"It'll grow back," he says, though I can hear his sadness, "They could've taken much more."

"They have already…"

"Stop it, Far," Schu says sternly, eyes flashing, "I know you're torn up about this, so am I, but we still have the _mission_ to complete and Nagi to rescue."

I hang my head, backwards off the edge of the tub and shut my eye, my lip trembling only slightly now. The heat of the water is seeping into my skin now, turning it lobster pink. Schuldig's cheeks are flushed.

"Don't call me Far anymore," I whisper, "It's not the same anymore…twisted like everything else…"

"This isn't the time for it," he begins, then sighs, "All right…?"

"Jei…"

It would be unusual to hear my name again. I don't think I'll answer to it, though…

Schu lies against me in the water, hard lines of his body against my side. I miss his hair…he looks so…

He kisses my neck softly and hugs me close.

"Jei?"

"Mmm…We have to think about how to get Nagi out of there…and then how to dismantle Esset…I'm thinking nuclear bombs would be good enough…How much for one?"

"Far more than what we have…But Jei?"

"What?"

"Let's get out. I'm getting pruny."

* * *

_Fin Dandelions_

_Please Review_

* * *

**Author's Notes: **This is abrupt of me and totally against what I've been saying for months, but I'm going to add another part to this arc. This is not the end, simply the last chapter of this section. The next should be coming along soon.

Yes, I said Crawford was dead. No confusion? Good.

Also, I changed the spelling of Schwartz. SEE!

* * *

**To My Readers: **

**StarTrekObsessed: **Plots are useful every once in a while…

Man, you got four hours? I WISH I got that much sleep when I'm working on stuff and school…Of course, I had like eleven cups of tea today, all seriously caffeinated. And this a gal who drinks one cup of coffee a day. Haha.

That's really awful about your boyfriend. I'm sorry.

Yes, Poor Schwarz. They're life is totally the suckage. Terror? Oh, no, my dear, you have barely BEGUN to feel terror…

Anyways, here's your sap moment. I'm sorry it wasn't under better circumstances, but at least it helped me pull this to a close quickly and easily, and, as per usual, abruptly.

Please keep an eye out for the fourth part. I should get around to it soon.

**TheInflictedFinger: **(forces you to double die with amazing updatage powers)

Oh no, I'm not preening…ha.

Oh yes, Tink is a bitch…never shuts up…even in _my_ head…(shifty eyes)


End file.
